Tips and Corrections

Here’s where I add new information, correct myself or just list useful tips.


Use tabs and rivets when cutting layers of material. In the Pteranodon book above, I am cutting a layer of Davey board, which you can see, and a layer of brass, which is below the Davey board. I need to hold the two layers together firmly, so the edges will match along the upper edge and around the feet. To the left of each black "tab" I have a tab of material which will be cut away when everything else is cut out. I put a brass rivet through each tab to hold the metal to the Davey board. There are also tabs with rivets on the end of the beak and further out on the wings.

The lower tabs don't have rivets yet, that's my next step. You could also use nuts and bolts to hold your tabs together, but they do stick up higher, and can be a problem when you're trying to rotate your piece as you saw. This one is so large and awkward, about 28 inches across, that I opted for the rivets. Use spring clamps (link is for illustration purposes only - I don't have this particular clamp - go to your local hardware to try them out.) to hold your layers together while cutting the tabs off. I buy mine at our local hardware, and have 8 clamps in 4 and 6 inch sizes. Rubber tips are very nice, the metal clamps seem to work better than the plastic, make sure they squeeze pretty hard. I would find it uncomfortable to clamp my fingers in the best ones.

Liver of sulfur – don’t use hot water – for years I’ve been telling my students to mix liver of sulfur with hot water. This is something I picked up from jewelers that I know. Now I read that you should mix it with warm water, if the water is hot it can give off dangerous fumes. I sometimes still see newer books calling it a “safe” patina for copper and silver, although most books warn not to allow the mixture to boil. But I now mix a very small piece of liver of sulfur in warm water (a hot bath temperature), and dip my work in the mixture, then into hot water, and back in the liver of sulfur mixture. If your metal is coloring too fast, add more water to the liver of sulfur mixture, or dip it in cold water to rinse. It’s also helpful to use a covered dish or keep a piece of plexiglass around that can be laid across the top of the container. This helps keep down those awful fumes a little.

Ball peen hammer sources – For riveting it’s important that your ball peen hammer be very smooth. A rough ball or face won’t shape a nice looking rivet. I used to suggest the small ball peen hammers at Orchard Supply and Rio Grande. Now they are very rough and need polishing to make good riveting hammers. There are several alternatives. Micro Mark has nice ball peen hammers. Unfortunately they don’t have a brand name on them, just a tiny “India” on the handle. Search on the key words "ball peen." Or, you can get a chasing hammer from many jewelry suppliers, but they are more expensive. In general I think any hammer advertised to “drive your steel tools” is going to be too rough.

Cheap flex shaft – I have been recommending the dremel moto tool as a relatively inexpensive way to drill holes. Now there is an economical flex shaft that looks like a good alternative.

Make lots of tests, samples, dummies, maquettes, whatever you call them. There are two good reasons for this. If you dive right in and make a mistake on an almost-finished piece, it can cost lots of time. And when you feel free to experiment, instead of thinking you’re making a finished product that has to look good, you might discover something interesting. It could be a new texture, color combination, or a way to use materials that you hadn’t thought of before. Take good notes so you can repeat your successes.

My textures book above has samples of experiments I have done on metal. It's bound together with a ball chain so I can easily add more pages. You can see, on page 2, my efforts at fusing silver to copper. It was an unsuccesful test, but I might someday want to duplicate that look. I sometimes forget how I've done something, and these records keep me from having to repeat the same test over and over. I used a dremel etcher to write brief instructions on each page.

Piercing with the jeweler's saw - Making an interior cut with the jeweler's saw is a little hard for beginners. You drill a hole in the metal and slip the free end of the saw blade through the hole, then attach that free end to the saw frame. If the blade is too loose you are more likely to break a blade, but it's hard to test the blade tension when it passes through the hole in the metal. Before piercing, you can set up your saw frame with one end of the blade flush against the stop, and then test your tension. The other blade end will be somewhere toward the middle of the clamp. To slip a free end of the blade through the hole in the metal, undo the saw blade end that is flush with the end of the clamp. When you re-assemble the saw to pierce your metal, the free end is the one that will be up against the stop. So your tension is automatically set in the correct place.


Check out the tutorials for other tips.