workspace, metals
my studio smells better than your studio
Always on the hunt for a bargain, and spending my grad life based out of a city full of trees, I’m big into curb-finding. My stakes and wee bad Harbor Freight anvil (bless you, Harbor Freight) are all at home on, from left to right, a Longleaf Tall Pine Branch, Aromatic Red Cedar (for the big stake and a slice for the wee anvil), Pecan for the vise, and Frasier Fir for the general purpose stamping stump. These guys are better than any air freshener you could ask for. I will also note the bamboo mandrels—when your neighbor’s bamboo begins to run into your yard, it’s yours to keep, so far as I’m concerned.
Heirlooms
Much in the same way as the rest of my tools for other mediums, many of my metalsmithing and jewelry tools are gathered and given. Many of my specialized hammers and tools were purchased, the rest of them belonged to my grandpa. Several are pictured to the right, but most (including my larger power tools, like my drill press) remain in my home studio back in Missouri.
being cheap and making do
As one might expect from my use of old hammers, scavenged stumps, I’m big into jerry rigging. Here are a few of my solutions.
A railroad spike works wonderfully for a spoon stake!
If you don’t have a ball stake …
(or if you don’t have the dough for one), a decent trailer hitch from your run of the mill hardware store can cost you a whopping $7—14!
Want some Solder Picks? Make some Solder Picks!
These blessed little fellers are made from some lengths of wire hangers. Because they’re steel, the heat takes an awful long time to travel up the length—plenty of working time as you’re going. And you can make them pretty, and you can make wild shapes. The shepherd’s crook (the top one) is the single most useful of them all. It is both a pick and a shield, as well as offering reflection for heat! And it’s lovely! Thank you to the illustrious smith Peg Fetter (whose work you can check out here if you so choose, and you should), for bringing the idea of making your own to my attention.
There are many more tools and ways of working that I have that are along the “Make it work, people,” vein (My makeshift bench is a portable drafting table I fixed with some leather safety pinned as a sweeps drawer, for instance), but it works. I have made things, and I will make more. It’s worked well enough—and I’ll work in much the same way forever, I would imagine.
Waste naught, want not. Don’t make it too complicated. Do you really need that tool? Can you figure it out another way? Yeah, you probably can—even if it uses a cut up beer can, a cat litter bucket, some string, and an old shoe.
