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Stamping the Metal

Lesson 4 from: Beginning Stamping for Jewelry Making

Raissa Bump

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Lesson Info

4. Stamping the Metal

Lesson Info

Stamping the Metal

So then I'm coming over and I'm gonna work on wood for this if you work on steel, you get a different thing that happens and you can play around with that but this actually goes from flat to curving a little bit from this stamping, which is something that I chose to keep and like and work into my design instead of keeping it fly if you work on the steal, your peace will not buckle because if this is actually pushing into the what a little bit so it's moving the medal in a different way you'll get a more of a texture, a different texture than if you work on this deal. So we're gonna work on a soft piece of wood here today to get the patterns and what I'm going to use is a center punch. This is the centre punch we typically use it to make a little spot where we're going to drill into the mark in the metal somebody's a center punch and then I'm going to use this stamp that's like a got a linear shape to it can get little set of stamps that come with different patterns on them and they can...

be circles that khun b triangles that could just be different shapes and give you different things happening, but for this one we're using this is a dot the center punches like a dot moment and then this linear stamp to give the lines that their texture in between it so like that's what's going to create the quilted pattern here uh let's move this out of the way you know what? I'm going to use that again so couple of things to know you don't want to use I'm gonna be hitting the ends of this you don't want to use your nice polished hammers for this you want to use a utility hammer so I've got this brass mallett here I've also got this little utility hammer and they're not polished you can mark them up all you want and they'll do the job they have some weight to them I asked, but I apologize if I missed it batory king is also asking how thick is the sheet metal that you're actually using? Okay, so I'm using twenty gauge actually, yeah yeah this is twenty twenty gauge or eighteen gauge will work you can work thinner but it's starting to get too thin and and too thick or thicker on the thicker side you have to just hammer a lot more in the middle doesn't want to move as much, so I would say stick between eighteen and twenty gauge that's good advice for began a particular yeah and so and even start with twenty it's a little bit thinner and will do the job just fine and be it slightly easier for you thank you yeah ok, so I'm placing that down I've got my pattern and I'm going to start by taking the center punch and just giving it a little tap right in the moments where all those the pattern where they overlap where the center of the grid is happening a little tap tap tap and I'm going to go over this a little bit more another time if I want to make it more dramatic but you can see that it's starting to press through to the other side of this particular stamping too would like a household nail work or you really tio could it might bend a little bit I mean different steals different but this center punch I mean if one of the basic tools a lot of these tools are basic basic tools you start out with in it in a jewelry making kid and it's not a big investment at all. I mean, a lot of wood shops have some sort of all or something like this to so you might have something like this already in the house to use and any kind of utility hammer that's not for finishing you start tapping all of these moments tap tap, tap, tap, tap tap is starting to fill it up and if you forget one you could just look at the other side and know if you've done it or not all right, so you tap them all and then you'll go to this around, so sure, and I'd actually didn't tap them all, but you can tell where you did or you didn't, but tapping them in getting the all the little moments of the intersections for this pattern, and then you're taking this linear the linear stamp, and you're placing it over the pattern here, too, and giving it tap. Now the more even you hit it, the more even it will come across. But again, you just there's one line kind of creating the pattern, the meeting up, so I'm just gonna go it's, good to get into a rhythm, and you, khun tap from one side to the next side, you could always go back again. In this case, sometimes with some patterns, you need to make sure you do it in one blow. But in this case, it's not. We're not working with fussiness here, the other direction, and you see it's starting to curve up so already the ends and the edges are starting to curve up its dome ing a little bit. You're actually moving the medal, so with this stamping your moving the medal and it wants to curve, so you want also the wood to be right underneath where you're tapping, so you're pressing down, getting a good connection, a good meeting point with the wood supporting right below and then tapping so again we're getting there and in this in this case choose you can go you go back, you can go forward you could do this I find that it's nicer to put the tap in first of this the dot and then the linear section that is what I find gives me the results that I want but there's no reason why you couldn't do one or the other first from the center out or does it matter? It doesn't really matter you will find that if you do everything on one side first it starts to really try to like even it out kind of go cross across the whole line and then across the whole another line and move instead of going all one side and then all the other side just because it keeps the metal moving at an even in even ah just evenly I guess yeah and if you notice if you look back and you're like oh this punch didn't show up that well in the end I want to go back in you can always take the center punch go back tio a certain dot and tap it again and make it more dramatic the more you hammer the bigger the the more dramatic the shaping on the other side is the texture going up the same technique you would use for metal stamp letters doing shourd's? Absolutely. You can get letter stamps and take that. The thing with the letter stamps is you can't really so easily go back to it, right? So it's hard to line it up to get the stamp in the exact place that the weather was first when you stamps, you want to make sure you get one solid blow to stamp it in, does that make sense? Like here? It's, easy for me to take this dot and line it up with that little because there's already the impression and it's not going to be off, but with the with the letters you want one hard blow and you can do it and most likely you're gonna want to do that over the steel to kneel the metal first before you do metal stamp you can a neil first, the metal will move a little bit easier. I find that sometimes if it's too, not to a deal, but if it's a kneeled uh, it will be more dramatic than I wanted to be. So you need to play around and they could be that you maybe don't have tons of arm strength and you want to tap a little less so in kneeling would be a good thing to d'oh, so it's just playing, and certainly this is work hardening it as you're going but that's ok in this case all right, so you just gonna keep going until you have the whole pattern stamped in there it's pretty much the same thing over and over the whole pattern there's a slight little dome to it. If it's not a shape that you exactly want if it's a little bit off you can take it on the steel. It was sort of maybe with rawhide or with your fingers just sort of press it down a little bit. I use my hands a lot my fingers a lot, but you could tap just gently not very much. You don't want the pattern to come out, but kind of creating creating the shape of the piece a little bit. So you have the piece this one silver you have the paper on the back side just pulling the paper off afterwards. You certainly want the paper off before you go to soller, so clean the glue off a swell. Yeah, but I mean, so when you're when you heat it up, it will burn off a little bit, but I'll take sandpaper to it. You do want it to be clean before you saw her, so especially the place in the center on the underside where you're going to start of the ring shing to you do need to make sure that that's that's clean sada again does not want to flow and work if the medals messes dirty or if there's not a good connection, it doesn't want to fill gaps just wants a nice, clean connection, it's pretty much like once get sucked into that small little scene, so I'm just taken that paper off, and then I'll take some sandpaper to it. All right? So this one it's similar technique, but you're not using the linear piece it all on your sawing out a scallop at the edge, and then you're connecting the dots. So in this one, I would draw a line with a scribe and a ruler essentially would line up your pattern and just put the ruler down and scribe a line and that's your guideline, and then, you know, you have a straight line, and so I did one line here, one like, you know, four different lines that I described onto the metal, and then I'd go over and do the same thing, but just with the centre punched tap tap tap and I like to go and tap right in the center where there's the overlaps of the lines and then fill in from there, it looks really nice when there's a point like that exact point is tapped and stamped in.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Raissa Bump - Beginning Metal Stamping Supply List.pdf
Raissa Bump - Stamped Metal Ring Template.pdf
Raissa Bump - Determining Ring Blank Lengths.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

gbarbphoto
 

I don't even make jewelry and I enjoyed this class so much. There is something relaxing about watching Raissa make jewelry. She explains everything very clearly!

Student Work

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