Beginner’s Guide to Essential Jewellery Tools

Nowadays, the market for jewellery is growing as people are willing to pay more time and effort for their aesthetic value as the socio-economic level of the society grows. Nowadays, not a few people would even choose to make their own jewellery. If you are exactly a beginner who wants to try your hand at jewellery making and are struggling to pick the right jewellery making tools. Then you can’t afford to miss this article today! Because I am going to introduce you to the essential tools for jewellery making beginners!

1. Pliers Set

Jewellery itself is an extremely fine decorative item. So it is very important to control the fineness in the process of making it. So this time we must use tweezers to help us carry out some precision operations. In fact, there is more than one type of tweezers that you can use in the jewellery making process. Some of the more common types of pliers include: sharp-nosed pliers, round-nosed pliers, curved-nosed pliers, and flat-nosed pliers. Below, I’m going to go over exactly what each of these pliers sets do in the jewellery making process.

The first is metal shaping

When making earrings or rings, you can use flat-nosed pliers or sharp-nosed pliers to reshape the metal.

The second is fixing the jewellery

Jewellery parts are actually very small in size, so it’s difficult for you to hold the jewellery directly in place with your hands during the process of making it. This is when you need to use the pliers to hold the jewellery in place and then follow through.

Finally, pliers can be used to press metal parts

In the process of jewellery making, a jump ring is an important metal part that can be used to join various metal parts together. You can think of a jump ring as a metal circle with an opening. The way to use a jump ring is to use two pincers to hold it on each side and then break it open to both sides. And the way to close the jump ring is also very simple, you just need to use a pair of sharp-nosed pliers to gently close the notched part of the jump ring.

In fact, there are more ways to use the pliers set than just those three mentioned above, and you can use the pliers for just about anything you feel like. However, it is quite clear that a single pair of pliers may hardly fulfil all your needs. Therefore, purchasing a pliers set is a more appropriate choice. You can choose the tools you need on your own according to your needs.

2. Jewellery engraving tools

Engraving on jewellery, leaving special words or patterns, can leave a highly personalised mark on your jewellery, and you will have jewellery that is uniquely yours. And carving some beautiful patterns on the jewellery can also give a high level of market value to the jewellery itself. Therefore, specialised engraving tools are also important in the process of jewellery making.

Engraving knife

A carving knife is an essential tool in the jewellery engraving process, which can be used to engrave metal, wax and other materials. Similar to the tools mentioned above, there are many different types of carving knives. The most common are classified according to the shape of the blade of the carving knife. For example, there are types such as flat, bevelled or rounded. Beginners can choose some basic shapes to start with, and then as they gain experience in jewellery making, they can purchase more types of engraving knives.

Engraving machine

If you feel that the efficiency of the engraving knife is too slow, or you have a certain amount of experience in jewellery making before, you can choose to purchase an engraving machine with basic functions. Generally speaking, if you purchase an engraving machine, the merchant will usually give you a set of basic engraving knife head pu. You can replace them according to your needs.

Engraving file

Engraving file is also a tool that can increase the delicacy of jewellery in the process of jewellery making. The use of an engraving file is very simple, you just need to use it to gently polish the surface of the jewellery. This will increase the shine of the jewellery and make the details on the surface of the jewellery come out more clearly.

3.Hammer Set

A hammer is also an essential tool in the process of jewellery making. The hammers used for jewellery making are the same as the pliers above, and you need to have different hammers on hand if you want to achieve different things. Below, I’ll introduce you to a few different hammers and what each of their roles are.

First up is the round head hammer

Round head hammers have different sides, one side is round and there is another side that is a regular flat surface. The rounded side can be used to hammer metal that has an uneven surface, while the other side can be used not only to hammer the surface of the metal flat, but also to hammer other jewellery making tools such as punches and chisels.

Next is the shaping hammer

The two sides of the shaping hammer are the same, both are long and flat. The shaping hammers have one function, and that is to be used to strike metal plates. Most commonly, a shaping hammer is used to hammer sheet metal into curved surfaces or bowls.

Then there are texturing hammers

Texturing hammers, as the name suggests, are hammers that leave a special texture on the surface of the metal. If you subdivide texture hammers according to the texture they strike, you can also classify them as line texture hammers, origin texture hammers, and so on. A common use of texture hammers is to create personalised jewellery.

Finally, there is the rawhide hammer

Rawhide hammers are hammers that have a layer of leather surrounding the exterior of the hammer. One of the characteristics of the rawhide hammer is that it leaves little or no marks on the surface of the metal it is used on. This is why rawhide hammers are ideal for use with ring or finger sizers to adjust the size of jewellery without leaving marks on the jewellery. For this reason, many jewellers buy rawhide hammers to help their customers resize their jewellery for a fee.

These are just some of the basic tools of jewellery making. Of course, in the actual practice of jewellery making, you definitely need more than the three tools mentioned above. However, due to the limited space of this article, we can only introduce these to you. If you are interested, you can also visit our Katway website to see more jewellery making tools.