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Your unique handmade jewelry guide of metalsmithing techniquesSurprise your friends and family with unique handmade jewelry. All you need to kick start your jewelry making is a few basic metalsmithing techniques. Find a simple guide here.
Take a look at these basic metalsmithing techniques and start jewelry making now. Achieve great skill and the acknowledgement that comes with it. Your friends and colleagues will be amazed with your unique handmade jewelry.
Jewelry Technique: metal tube makingTubing is a basic metal form that is hollow, uniform, seamless or seamed. It’s like a hose, with uniform wall thicknesses and diameter.Jewelry suppliers offer metal tubes in various wall thicknesses, diameters and shapes. Seamless tubing is also available from specialized suppliers. Metal tube is a useful material for jewelers, widely used as hinges and many other functional and decorative ways. Making metal tube is much like drawing wire. It uses the same procedure but it begins with a strip of metal instead of with a metal filament and you have to manually curve the strip before drawing it. To obtain the strip of metal you have two options. You can cut a strip of metal from sheet metal using shears or you can flatten a square wire in the rolling mill.
The strip of metal has to be sufficiently thin to allow tubing it but also sufficiently thick depending on its function. Check that the strip is uniform in width and has parallel edges throughout its length so that the edges meet evenly along the seam when you’re curving the strip. (Example of earrings made with metal tubes).
Hammer the mandrel down on the strip to force it into the groove gently, making it curve in a U shape. Don’t try to force it in at once though. You have to anneal the strip frequently and hit it gently but with adequate strength until it slowly begins to curve itself. Move the strip to consecutive smaller grooves so that it starts closing upon itself. Once you have your strip of metal nearly closed, anneal it very well and you’re ready to feed it into the drawplate. Feed the tapered tube end through a drawplate’s opening that barely resists its passage. Grasp the tube end with the drawtongs and gently pass it through. Remember to lubricate the drawplate and pull the tube slowly and steadily. Place the tube in the next smaller opening and pull it through. Anneal frequently and check constantly that the seam is closing evenly along the whole length of the tube. Always draw the tube with the seam facing upward, so you can see it while drawing. To ease the process you can also dip the tapered end of the tube into the lubricant before drawing. Once the seam is completely closed, you can draw the tube faster through the openings annealing constantly. The same procedure is done if you want to make tubes of different cross section shapes. Tube can be cut into smaller lengths if you want to make their diameter smaller so as to facilitate the drawing process. Always store your tubes and wires in long and hard containers to keep their shape.
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Your unique handmade jewelry will have a professional look and feel. 
