Jewellery Tool Making - Lesson 3

Today, at last, we started making punches. Our teacher had made us each 2 'blanks' out of tool steel on a lathe, one with a 2mm head, and one with a 6mm head. We had to carve them, harden, polish and temper them.

A 2mm area is very tiny! One person did a heart, one a leaf, one a crescent moon, and I did an 'O'. Not very adventurous! But I wanted something I could use for my work, and I often need a nice eye for my little animals.

First - I made a punch mark into the 'centre', then I drilled out the 'O' with  an Archimedes drill. Then - smoothing and polishing etc'.

After working on a 2mm round, 6mm seemed enormous, so I decided to attempt a snowflake...
Well, it's sort of snowflakey, not brilliant but I will have to practice carving steel. It's not that hard, but I would probably like to work with a magnifying lens next time, so I can actually see what I am carving...

Here are my attempts:

The finished 'O' - slightly off centre, but that just adds character, does it not :-)

This is the 'O' tool in action - looks like eyes! Inset is nearer actual size of punch

Close up of the 2mm 'O'

Close up of the snowflake. I knew what I intended to carve...
I can now see it looks a bit like a round Union Jack!

Before my course started, I had a chance to check out a Macro lens in a camera shop - I dream about owning one - one day...
Here is one of the photos I took, of my favourite earring (I didn't make this one) - you can get really up close and personal with this one! Amazing!

Macro Lens Test - Click for a larger image