Most of us wind up acquiring a nice stash of various jewelry tools over time.
Some of the things we use are “real” tools – pliers, cutters, reamers, files, crimpers, etc.
(See the Bead Dreamer’s lovely photo and writeup about her collection of jewelry pliers.)
But do you also have a variety of odds and ends that you use as jewelry making tools?
A few of my favorite “unofficial” tools that I use in making my jewelry are:
Colorful mini-clothespins that I clip onto the far end of my beading wire to keep my beads from sliding off while I’m stringing.
Wooden popsicle sticks, marked with a Sharpie pen, which I use as template guides for marking where to bind wire bundles for common cabochon sizes.
Bone beads with various sizes of holes, which I pull leather cord through several times to soften and “weather” the cord and take the curl out of it.
A knife-sharpening stone, which I rub across the cut ends of wire to file off any sharp edges; it’s especially handy for heavier gauges of wire.
A leather-worker’s awl, for poking the holes in my earring cards (I used to use an icepick with equally good results).
There might be “official” jewelry tools that would do these jobs just as well as the odds and ends I use.
But I’m fond of these adapted devices, and I store them right alongside my pliers and other tools. They’ve become part of the gang.
And I’m interested to know -
What unofficial jewelry tools do you use?
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
I like to do a lot of metal forming so I use a lot of mandrels, anvils, hammers etc. Been known to use everyday objects for forming too – cans, table edges….I’ll walk around the house looking for the right shape
As an anvil, I use a cast iron clothing iron. This is the type that you placed on the wood/coal stove to heat up and then ironed the clothing until it was cool and had to placed back on the stove for reheating. It is light enough to be portable, so I don’t have to have a fixed location for it. I made a burnisher from an old electrical screwdriver with a bent tip. Both of these work very well.
I picked up some small anivils in the automotive body work dept that I use for forming. Wherever I can find something affordable and usable.
I use my knitting needles for forming different sizes of jump rings, and I’ve found a small 4 way nail buffer to be indispensable for wireworking to round, smooth, buff and polish metal. The large size at home, the tiny size for my emergency travel kit. The bonus for me is that they only cost $1.29 at Sally Beauty Supply, lol.
Well, I guess I gotta start with something that gives away my age, but I can’t begin to do anything anymore without my very strong cheater glasses! Then there is my tape measure, and finally T-pins used for upholstery, emery boards, alligator clips, painters tape and fingernail polish. Teri Twitter: Teri_B http://sandtcreations.etsy.com http://www.sandtcreations.com/wordpress
Well, let’s see. I use a Sharpie marker to not only mark wire, but as my favorite mandrel around which I bend my wire. I, too, use an awl for my earring cards. I use an old glass ashtray for my flux that gets dried out. I can crush it with the base of my file (and nevermind the expensive jewelers’ files – I use the cheap carpentry files from the flea market!) and add water. I put scotch tape at the end of my beading wire so beads don’t slip off, and various dowels and nails as mandrels for making split rings along with the power drill from my toolbox.
LOL…I use a tent stake to make my earwires with…best mandrel I have!!
Thanks so much for posting about this! It’s always interesting to see what useful, unexpected purposes somethings can have. Reminds me that one doesn’t need the expensive tools for a certain job to get that job done – just look around your home, markets, hardware stores and the likes. Anything can be a potential for helping one create something
I have 3 work surface trays. Two 18X28 inches and one 12.5X17.5 inches, all are heavy guage metal, proffessional baking sheets. I line them with a piece of microfiber to reduce bounce & roll. They allow me to work on my lap or any table I like and to set my work aside – with everything in place – and come back to it.
I also have a hole punch I bought in the wedding section of Walmart for putting holes in earring cards.
I have cutters for craft wire, but use a regular pair of cutters for memory wire and other heavier cutting.
I use crochet needles as mandrels for making jumprings.
I have a rotating kitchel tool holder that does just fine for all my “regular” and “special” tools.
I LOOOOVE reading these – I am new and learning – but found that regular push-pins make good hole sizes for my earring cards. For attaching my card to my drawstring gift pouches, I use a hole punch that makes a smaller hole than usual, but big enoughf for the cord. Thanks to the more experienced for sharing!
My favorite right now is a big nail. I use it to design my silver and copper pieces instead of using a purchased stamp.
I have mandrels, but I end up bending my ear wires on a papermate pen most of the time. I use wooden dowels to wind jump rings, and often cut them right on the dowel. A piece of tapered a wood chair leg that I found makes a great mid-sized mandrel, and small steel nut picks from the flea market are wonderful burnishers. My favorite – I buy old used cross peen hammers at the flea market, and reshape the heads with a belt sander before I polish them to make all kinds of hammer heads. I also cut the heads off old toothbrushes and shape the handle with saw and files to make no-marring tools – bezel pushers, light bezel punches, etc. Plastic head hammers from the flea market are a s good as rawhide hammers, and can be reshaped on the sander as well.
Probably my most-used unofficial tool is a pair of nail clippers! I have some with a slanted tip, and there is nothing better to cut the tail of a wire between small beads!
I have a small tape measure I got as a prize in a Christmas cracker. I use it to measure not only the full length of my projects but it’s great to measure people too.
Sometimes I use children’s baking sets to work with my clay. I especially like using the mini dough roller because it’s just the right size. I also use mini cookie cutters to cut out pendants from the clay. I like to put a piece of saran wrap over the clay before pressing down the cookie cutter to give it a beveled edge.
I use lots of improvised stuff in my jewelry making. Knitting needles are great for mandrels, poking things in place, etc. I use crochet hooks to thread things and place things. I use Rubbermaid or Tupperware containers to keep works in progress together. Of course zip lock bags are used for storing everything. I use a four sided nail buffer (it is on a sponge backing) to smooth things out.
Wow, lots of us think alike! I also use the 4-way nail buffers when I do metal clay projects and I use different types of metal nail files to smooth my earwires and to add a brushed finish and texture to my hammered metal. (I have the nail files for my jewelry students to use and they think they’re funny at first – but love them after they try them!) I also have an old film canister (remember those?!) I use as a mandrel for certain wire wrapping projects that doubles as a scrap metal holder and a 15 year old brass ‘nail kit’ that has a hemostat, tiny sharp scissors, mini file, and large, heavy duty nail cutters that are super flush and great when I don’t want to damage my good cutters!
The “unofficial tool” I use most is a square glass tray from an old microwave. It is large enough to hold my bead board and still have room on both sides for supplies on one side and tools on the other. The sides are tall enough to keep everything from rolling off and I put a bandanna on the bottom to keep things from scooting around.
I also have nail clippers, dowels, hardware pliers and whatnot, but I also use a lot of automotive tools that my son has (well, when he isn’t looking anyway). But as much as I use “unofficial tools” for making jewelry, I also use jewelry supplies “unofficially. My favorite story is using accuflex wire and crimp beads to fix the throttle on a lawn mower. It worked so well that we never did fix it “right”. I love multi-use tools!
I love reading all these tips. Many I use myself, and others were a perfect “aha”! To add a new “tool” to the list, would be a pearl head stick pin, the kind used for pinning a corsage on. The pearl head makes it easy to find, against the many pieces of wire and head pins floating around. I find that it is easy for me to hold the pearl and use the tip to align beads in a channel of a bead board. I also use it to pick up a few beads in a pattern to see how they lie together. I use it for all other things as well and I find myself frantic if I can’t find it!
Great ideas all!
Enjoy the day!
Erin
Great tips! I use a small baby spoon to pick up seed beads, binder clips for the end of the wire when stringing beads, also have an awl and small paper punch for earring cards.
I use mini binder clips to prevent beads from slipping of the end of my beading wire. I have small plastic tape measures (2 / $.88 at Walmart) in all my pocketbooks and beading bags, you never know when there will be a wrist that needs measuring. I use an unfinished wood tray with sides that I line with a felt square to provide a work surface for stringing and making earrings etc. (available @ most craft shpps for < $5.00. Plastic watercolor trays make a great open container when working with seed beads. Cupcake tins are great containers to hold beads by color at a child’s birthday beading party.
OK- here is my idea of weird tools!
I am a silversmith not a wire worker so I have different ideas for tools.
The first thing is a big old set of knitting needles- they are all labeled on the flat end with their mm size and their inch size. They work great for making jump rings. They also can be clamped in my bench clamp and I can wrap silver wire around them for many inches. Since they are aluminum the wire coil slips right off no matter how tightly you wrap- this is not the case with wooden dowels. They are cheap!
My second thing I couldn’t live without is discarded playing cards from the casino. They are great for little pads when I stamp or when I lay a sheet of sterling out to work on. They make little risers that are nice for propping cabs in bezels for pendants and rings. They are thick enough to use for a straight edge to draw a line or scratch on sterling sheet with the edge of a caliper.
They are free.
And last- at the soldering bench I use old worn out dental tools to push solder and silver bits around with. They are free.
Just my 2 cents worth on tools. Unfortunately I have oodles of expensive tools I don’t use nearly as much.
Jean Menden
http://www.jmendensilver.com/blog
Enjoyed the tips…some new and great ideas. I’m a wire wrapper. I use a plastic sheet cake carrier with a lid and handle from walmart as my portable work space. I covered the bottom with leather, drew measurements in ink on the leather so I can easily roll my cab and measure the circumference…etc. I can fit several clear rigid plastic bags for various wires and all my tools (tools fit on the edge when in use) and a tray of stones…and it works great in my lap traveling down the highway (as a passenger!) making jewelry..I use it at home too..and, you can close it up. I love it!
I’ve picked up so many great tool ideas here from y’all – thanks so much for sharing!
Like Angela, I’ve also used jewelry supplies for unofficial purposes.
Once when our puppies kept wandering out through a hole in the chain-link fence, I used flat-nosed jewelry pliers to neatly weave 21-gauge square brass jewelry wire across the hole!
Hi, love the ideas above, a few of my own are dental diamond tip burs for drilling sea glass, nailclippers for getting right up to the edge of wire to cut it, disposable crudite plates with 6 sections..great for sorting beads at the end of the day into types, I use clear plastic take away boxes with snap on lids from our local Chinese restaurant..and keep all my beads in them stacked ten high..I have over 300 now…I use Blue Tack (the blue stuff used to hand up posters etc..think it’s called sticky tack in US?) for ends of wire instead of bead stoppers, a very ancient mustard spoon for scooping up tiny beads, a Victorain pearl topped hat pin for poking into bead holes when the wire just will not go through!
These are great ideas! I have a small cafeteria-style plastic tray with sides. Half of it has a beading mat glued to it. I keep a large, 2-gallon zip-lock (slider style) handy, so that if I am in progress with a project, I can slide the tray into the bag. I figure, if the tray in the bag gets bumped, knocked to the ground, etc.. it would at least be easier to sort out pieces than if they all fell into my plush carpet.
There are some tools here that I am not familiar with. Looks like I have some more research to do!
I use clear nail polish and glue for artificial nails as glue. Works best on light weight items, though. These go on and dry clear, so they work very well with flat back crystals.
Barbara
Sister Friends.
Just this week I discovered that my deodorant makes a great oval mandrel for my sterling cuff bracelets!! (and I almost bought a $50 earlier this week- hahahahah take that economy!!!)
For storing all my metal bead findings, I use tiny cork-stoppered glass bottles – the type that contain bath salts and come in sets of 6 or 12. I have them all laid flat in a large white melamine tray which has handles – easily portable, easily visible, looks attractive and very cheap! I get most of these bath salts from car boot sales!
I also use the little plastic boxes that business cards come in – useful for putting in assorted coloured odd beads.
I store oversized beads and chain in those neat oval mayonnaise jars. The large flip top opening and the easily shelved size make it ideal. Smaller plastic jars, such as the ones that dried minced onions come in, are also great. My favorite storage, however, is my 15 drawer vintage library card catalog file. Each drawer holds a different color. Since the drawers are meant to pull out, I can pull a drawer of whatever color out and sort through it for the beads I want.
Thank you for all those ideas!! Loved it!
I read this tip on a web site: an old TV antenna to make jump rings of different sizes. Is lightweight and retractable, is portable. Also, I saw a You tube video of someone using a fork to open/ close medium and large size jump rings.
I use a scrapbooking basket that has many pockets, compartments and handles. I keep my favorite tools and supplies there and can carry them easily.
Sometimes I use safety pins to hold parts of a project and when I am beading it helps me stabilize my piece.
Masking tape. Those “paper” strips that come with garbage bags (used to close the bags) are also handy (to wrap wire for storage).
I also use an old fashion cast iron iron. I have a work bench that is a full length vise and I place the handle in it to use the face of the iron as a bench block. Then I use the handle as a mandrel. I also have a cast iron shoemakers last which gives me gently curved surfaces for shaping. I picked them up along with several hammers at a flea market.
I love the idea about the old iron. My favorite two “unofficial s” are Old looking bottles, pier one has a ton of ‘em cheap! And Altoids tins for projects I am in the middle of or cool thing I wanna save. I think I have at least 50 of those.