Island of Misfit Tools

Metalsmiths need lots of tools.  Many of the tools are obvious -- blowtorch, files -- but the longer you're a metalsmith, the more you start misappropriating tools.  You find tools that really are for other purposes but fit what you need exactly.  For example, a goldsmith acquaintance of mine is a dentist.  She recently spent an hour showing some fellow metalsmiths tools that she's ordered from her dental catalogs for metalsmithing purposes.  There are some fantastic things in those dental catalogs, and I'm not just talking about that gizmo that wrenches your mouth open.  I'm not thinking about getting that thing to use on my daughter.  Not at all.

Sanding pads, aka thin sanding sponges.

Here's my favorite misappropriated tool: the sanding pad.  It's actually for woodworkers.  It's to help them easily sand rounded items like table legs and artisan billy clubs.  But it also works beautifully on jewelry.  The thin sponge attached to the back of the sanding pad is so flexible and easy to hold, unlike sandpaper.  It's pretty good at getting into corners and smallish spaces.  Also unlike sandpaper, it's very durable.  You can even wash it clean of metal dust and use it again.

I decided to look up what made sanding pads so awesome, and it's the aluminum oxide abrasive blah blah snore.  I have to admit -- I don't really care what makes them so hardy and flexible.  It's kind of like Magic Eraser: I'm sure there's something in that thing that's going to give me brain cancer, but it gets unwashable marker off of walls!  Woot!  As long as it's working for me, I'm happy.

Here are some other members of my Island of Misfit Tools: 

My blowtorch: Just add a torch head and you're
in business.  It ain't graceful, but it
gets the job done.

1) My blowtorch.  Professional metalsmiths have these fancy torches with tanks that mix acetylene and oxygen, or little hand butane torches for detail work.  Me, I have a 14 oz. Worthington propane cylinder that you can waltz into any ol' hardware store and get.  Add an off-the-rack nozzle/torch head and you're in business for $19 instead of $600.

2) A wooden kitchen spoon.  If you want to make your own metal links and jump rings (those little metal circles that hold everything together), you can get jump ring makers to enable you to make uniform rings.  And I have several jump ring makers.  But the jump ring maker that creates my favorite size and shape is the handle of a wooden spoon I found.

3) A pushpin.  Just your average little pushpin (mine has a red plastic top, so I can see it easily if it falls on the floor).  I drill holes in metal a lot.  But it's hard to drill a hole without the drill skittering all over the metal.  When you're driving nails, that's what a nail punch is for -- to help position the nail before you start hammering.  But nail punches leave too big a mark for many tiny pieces of jewelry.  So I just use a pushpin, hammering lightly on its flat top to leave a tiny indentation in the metal.

I'll show more tools I use on here in the future.  Feel free to misappropriate anything I mention for your own needs!  For example: Wooden spoons are also great for beating children, decorative crafts, poking at dead things in your yard, and to help you fish things out from under the couch.  I understand some people also use them for cooking, but I have never actually seen this happen.    

Where I create

My neighbor asked me recently if I made my jewelry in the garage.  It makes sense for metalsmithing, but the garage is not weather-perfect.  We live in Virginia -- it's too cold out there in the winter and too muggy in the summer.  So where do I work?  There is a very nice built-in desk in our office.  It has some shelves, several drawers, overhead lighting, an outlet and a small closet next to it.  It would be an ideal studio space.  Except it's not.

The built-in desk in all of its horror.  Metalsmithing books
on the left, packaging and craft show items on the floor,
boxes and bags of non-jewelry supplies on the desk.

 

The desk wasn't supported in the middle and therefore is a bit bowed.  Things roll to the middle when set on top of the desk.  I need that to be fixed.  And I'd like the drawers to be arranged more conveniently for heavy outlet use.

So we're going to rebuild the desk a little and create the perfect studio space for me.  Someday.  First I have to clean all the crap off the desk.  I set things there when we moved in three years ago and they've never found a home.  (The curse of the crafter:  Too many supplies.)  I'm not quite ready to be brutally honest about cleaning this area.  In the meantime, the stuff appears to be reproducing, which is only making matters worse.  And I am left with no studio space. 

My trusty work tray in the family room. Papers to
the left are sketches, and to the right of the bowl is my
must-have pile of sanding sponges. Also: I love my red
microfiber couch, but hate that it leaves butt marks.

So for now I work in the kitchen.  It's actually not bad.  The only downside is that I have to clean up every evening so we can make dinner (and so resident 5-year-olds won't get hurt).  Otherwise, there's a nice big window, plenty of lighting, lots of outlets, and I'm right next to the sink (more on the importance of being close to a water source in a future post).  However, that means my tools are all over the kitchen.  I have some stashed in what cupboard space there is, but I'm not motivated to pack too much away.  When you're using these tools several times a week, you want to be able to grab them quickly.   

I occasionally work in the family room, too.  It's where we hang out or watch TV, so I tend to do repetitive work in there -- filing, polishing.  I work on a little antique tray I have.  A family room might not seem like the best place to have work set up, but I have my daughter trained:  Don't touch Mommy's tray or anything on it.  She's so well trained that she recently ratted out my mother.  "Mommy, Grammy's touching your jewelry!  Mommy!  She just touched it AGAIN!"

The tool bucket in the kitchen (and, yes,
the boxes to the right are filled with
supplies).  The bucket is filled with all
my tools that won't maim small kids.

My family is extremely nice about the bucket and boxes next to the kitchen table and tray of tools in the family room.  No one breathes a word about the blowtorch sitting on the counter (disassembled, of course -- I'm not trying to kill anyone making sandwiches in my "studio").  It's possible that my family is enabling me, but I love them for letting me work my own way.  My husband occasionally nags me about using the stovetop as part of my work space, but he knows I'm careful.  And he's sweet enough that, the one time I was distracted and not careful and therefore melted part of my Dremel case, he didn't even tell me, "I told you so."  He just told me to call the Dremel hotline and order another one. 

Someday I will have a beautiful little studio in the office.  I will not have to clean up silver dust just to be able to slice an apple.  I'll be able to leave my tools right on the tabletop and not yell, "Leave the metal where it is!  Make yourself some cheese crackers on the other side of the sink!"  But I won't be able to look out the window at the birds and trees while I work.  I won't have as much space to move around.  So I'll admit I'm not rushing things.  It might freak people out to know I made their ring in my kitchen, but the kitchen's environment helped me make that ring beautiful.  And despite what my neighbor thinks, if you saw our garage, you'd be grateful I settled in the kitchen.