Sheet metal jewelry making. Sheet Metal Pendant. Sheet metal jewelry tutorial. How to make jewelry with metal. Best gauge sheet metal for jewelry. How to make your own metal jewelry.
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Today we are going to make a pendant out of sheet metal, wire and a cabochon. We will fix a stone cabochon on a metal plate without soldering, using only hand tools. You can use my attachment design without soldering in your further sheet metal jewelry making.
Best gauge sheet metal for jewelry
What sheet metal to use to make a pendant.
I use sheet metal of copper, brass, silver, bronze and melchior to make jewelry. I make jewelry from sheet metal with a thickness of 0.4 mm and 1 mm.
For this pendant, I used 0.4 mm thick nickel silver and brass metal sheets.
Tools for making a pendant out of sheet metal.
We will need metal scissors,
a hammer
and an anvil.
They are necessary for sheet metal jewelry making.
To work with wire, we will need a small set of hand tools.
I strongly recommend buying rubber tipped pliers. It is an indispensable tool when weaving the wire. Without it, it is very difficult to make quality and beautiful weavings of wire.
Pendant tutorial.
Draw a sketch of the future pendant on paper.
You can choose the shape of the pendant and then draw it. Pay attention to the way the cabochon is attached – it is very important. We can use cabochon of round, square and oval shapes. Almost any shape cabochon can be fastened in this way. The main advantage of sheet metal jewelry making is that you literally can use any cabochon.
But I do not recommend using thick cabochons.
We need to draw the cabochon and add the details that will then hold the cabochon in place. Later, after watching the lesson, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Glue the drawing to the metal sheet with stationery glue.
Let’s use a jeweler’s jigsaw and cut out the parts inside the metal sheet.
In order to insert the jigsaw blades, we need to drill holes in the metal.
Cut out the middle part and then make cuts in the sheet according to the drawing.
This is what you should have as a result (photo below). I made six clips for the cabochon, although four is usually enough. The width and number of clips depend on the size of the cabochon and the thickness of the metal sheet.
And this is how the cabochon will be attached.
Cut out the shape with metal scissors. Round the edges of the cabochon clips. Subsequently, all edges of the metal should be sanded.
Remove the paper from the metal sheet.
Make the future cord loop out of metal. I used brass for it.
Bend a strip of metal.
I made several notches on the metal for beauty. You don’t have to do that.
Drill a hole for the rivet.
Insert the rivet (it can be made from wire).
Using a hammer and an anvil, we should flatten the rivet on the back side of the pendant.
Let’s attach the loop for the cord.
Try on a cabochon.
Let me tell you a little about how you can make a rivet. On one side of the wire, we will make a ball with a gas torch burner.
Hold the wire vertically. Next, bring the tip of the wire to the tip of the flame. After a while, the wire will start to melt and a ball will be formed.
Note: The wire should be made of natural metal. The temperature of the flame should be at least 1300 degrees Celsius.
The rivet is finished.
Let’s put it to good use. Let’s add some decorative rivets to the metal sheet. First, we drill holes for the rivets to the size (thickness) of the wire.
Insert the rivet. The ball should be on the front side.
Cut the wire, leaving 1-2 mm.
Place the ball on the anvil and flatten the wire with strictly vertical blows of the hammer.
The ball will flatten out a little on the front side.
I added three decorative rivets to the pendant.
I decided to add more wire ornaments to the metal sheet. To do this, I took three pieces of brass wire 1 mm thick. I made balls on the ends of the wire. All three wires were weaved with 0.4 mm thin wire.
In order to attach the wire weaving to the metal sheet, I pre-drilled holes. While weaving, slip the wire through the holes and secure the weaving to the metal sheet.
Prettily bend the ends with beads near the wires.
Fix the cabochon to the metal sheet. To do this, simply bend the metal strips (clips).
If necessary, grind and polish the metal parts of the pendant. This is very important in sheet metal jewelry making.
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