Jewellery Tools - In Praise Of The Mitre Jig

Like most metalwork jewellery makers I've developed a love of the tools I use and quite enjoy a browse in any shop that sells hammers and that kind of thing to see if there's something I could use. I sometimes come home with small toolish "things" that I don't even know the name of but think they look promising for use in my shed....

One of the tools that caught my eye recently was a mitre jig. A mitre jig or jeweller's jig is a small three part piece of steel that does some pretty wonderous things in the way of making a jewellery maker's life a lot easier!

I've come across mitre jigs before {but only from a distance} and knew they were used to get straight edges and angles on things and that joiners used them but it all looked a bit complicated and technical and precise which isn't a word that always applies to how I do things. But after watching a very useful video by David Wilson via Cookson Gold on how to use a mitre jig I realized I really needed one. After seeing the price of them at Cooksons {about £55!} I looked elsewhere and bought one from Cousins UK for about £27. The only difference is the Cousin's mitre jig only has one set of knurled {good word!} nuts on the top where the Cookson's version also has one of them on either side of the jig.

Enough about knurled nuts.....so what can you do with a mitre jig? You can do lots of very useful things in the way of getting a straight edge on wire, tube and sheet. I make a lot of bangles and where I previously would file the ends straight {which in my world meant not really that straight} by bracing the wire against my bench peg and filing I now use the mitre jig...

I undo the nuts {knurled} and feed the end of the wire into the relevant sized slot on the bottom section of the jig. This is the part you use to achieve a flat, straight edge to your metal. Tighten up the nuts and you are ready to file. I rested the jig on my bench peg with the end of the wire hanging down between the V slot on the bench peg. I then held the jig with one hand and filed right to left with the other hand until the end was flush with the surface of the jig. It takes seconds and gives you nice clean straight edges making soldering and clean up easier.

Filing the metal does produce a lip which you can see in this photo making the join look a bit wavy but you'll just have to believe me when I say there was no light between the ends when I held it up to the light and when it was soldered the solder jumped into the join with glee :D

Another good use for the jig is for filing a flat section on a ring band ready for soldering on a bezel. I usually brace against my bench peg to do this but as my bench peg isn't particularly level I normally end up with a flat area that tilts to one side so end up filing it several times before it's completely level. 

Using the mitre jig as a vice you can then file off a section of the ring band quickly and it will be totally flat so no more messing about holding it up and squinting at it to see if it's level which is what I tended to do.

You can also use the mitre jig to file a straight edge on sheet metal. If you know you already have one true straight edge you simply butt the metal up to the square notch which will make sure it's at the correct 90 degree angle then you can start filing. You can also use it to straighten up the ends of bezel wire {very useful!}, rings bands, etc, etc, in fact anything that needs a straight edge.

 You can also use your jeweller's saw with the mitre jig to remove excess metal or to cut tube if you don't have a tube cutter. It's so useful and I haven't even mentioned the top slot which does exactly the same as the bottom slot but at a 45 degree angle!

The video is worth watching but I was a bit puzzled at the part where he attaches the mitre jig to the piece of wood that can then be clamped into a vice. I couldn't work out how you would use it with the wood behind it as you wouldn't be able to feed the metal through from the back.....

I'm not affiliated with Cookson Gold or Cousins UK so this wasn't written to advertise their products..... I just wanted to share what a fab tool it was! And use the word knurled several times.

More Ice Resin Experiments........ and Mistakes!

Carrying on from my post last week about Ice Resin experiments, I made some matching pairs of the curly whirly swirly designs that I've decided I like the most. After getting fairly well matched pairs by bending two pieces of the copper wire at the same time using my pliers, I soldered all the points where the wires met and sanded the shapes flat giving myself two very sore finger ends in the process.

The next step was to add the coloured resin. I mixed up about 20ml for the first batch and divided it into four pots which I then coloured with acrylic paints.

My first mistake...

Attempting to do too much at once and ending up with a sticky mess. The acrylic paint does make the resin thicker and more glue-like and while the first two coloured resins were still fairly runny and easy enough to drip into the copper squiggles by the time I got to the last two I'd made from the first batch of resin they were very thick and sticky making adding them to the squiggles really hard. This resulted in blobs of resin in the wrong place, overflows and me sticking my thumb where it shouldn't go {no not there!} and making a mess of what was a decent job on one of the squiggles.

I did manage to rescue them all but there was a bit of overflowing and quite a bit of swearing. The next day I noticed some resin seepage from some of the unsoldered points that I thought were tight enough together not to leak which meant some of the resin was at a slightly lower level than other parts but again not to the point I couldn't save it. Using my jewellers saw made quick work of removing any resin that had seeped out too.

How to avoid the same mistake next time...

Mixing up a smaller amount of resin each time and maybe sticking to two colours at a time. Concentrating on two pairs of earrings at a time so I don't start panicking and ending up with many, many plastic pots and lots of very sticky toothpicks and lolly sticks and bits of kitchen roll and baby wipes and blobs of resin scattered on the table and the floor. It really was sight to behold.

Using the oven to cure resin

I've read that you can cure Ice Resin this way at temperatures between 90F to 135F so I thought I'd have a go using my gas oven set at the "S" {slow cook I presume} setting. This setting is really too high but I thought I'd try it anyway. I used some resin I'd poured into bottle caps for this and left it in the oven for over an hour.

Here is what happened to it...

My second mistake....

The results resemble an explosion in a plastics factory. It was too hot and left for too long but it is cured and very hard! I am going to try this again but next time I'll heat the oven then turn it off and put the resin on the bottom rather than the top shelf and keep an eye on it, probably taking it out every now and then to check it. It would be fab if I could get this to work as curing my resin takes about four days in the airing cupboard at the moment.

Copper and resin earring experiments

The results of the pierced and bowl designs I made last week were varied shall we say. One problem I didn't consider with the pierced design using textured copper was the fact that I couldn't sand it afterwards without losing the texture so any resin that I'd spilled around the edges {and not noticed} would protect the copper from the effects of the LOS leaving it bright compared to the oxidized copper.

 Like this...

So that's an idea I won't be repeating!

The other pair were fine I'm glad to say. I took a quick photo in the late afternoon on the window sill in my shed on a rainy day so apologies for it being dark.

I didn't sand the resin as I do prefer the shiny version. The marks you can see in it are a reflection.

So back to the curly whirly swirly designs...

I was a bit daunted that I was going to have to sand all of these but once I got going it wasn't too bad. I did use a large metal file and an abrasive disc with my flexshaft to start some of the very bumpy ones off which did leaves some gouges in the metal and resin but that will be sorted once I've finished all the sanding. I'm planning on sanding up to 1500 grit as I would like it to look as smooth as possible without going as far as polishing it. I used a glass brush in water to clean the resin in between sanding which really helped to remove the "dirt" that gets ingrained in it. 

I'm planning to oxidize the copper but after trying it earlier today on another piece and discovering that wire wool scratches resin and leaves it dirty {again!} I'm going to leave the copper dark and "polish" the oxidation in the tumbler.

I've now run out of coarse sandpaper so I had to stop and clear away lots of soggy pieces of 80 and 100 grit and the small puddle of water on my desk. I'm off to Homebase later to buy some more. The joys of making resin jewellery!

I'll post the finished photos of these next week.....

Experimenting With Ice Resin

Or should I say more experimenting with Ice Resin! As a continuation to my blog post last week I have been at it again and doing some more interesting things with epoxy resin. 

My first attempts didn't cure properly, possibly because I didn't measure the two parts accurately enough or it might have been because I didn't mix the acrylic paint properly before adding it to the resin. Anyway, my second attempts which were the swirly abstract shapes you can see in the bottom right photo below did cure I'm glad to say. They are now leaning up against my work shed window and look really pretty with the light shining through them :D 

So armed with slightly more but still a fairly small amount of knowledge about resin I tried again on Wednesday. I made a few pairs of copper earrings, one with two little copper bowls soldered to the bottom and two more with pierced out shapes, then added some coloured resin.

In my haste to get going with the resin I didn't make sure the copper was clean so ended up with some copper dust in the bright green resin in the bullet shape earrings top left. I also wasn't very keen on my colour choices for the bullet shape earrings.......

I then mixed some more resin for a pendant and used some pretty pinks and oranges {which I did like!} Please excuse the poor photo but the light was going by the time I took it.

I took some more photos in the slightly better {but not much} light yesterday morning after they'd had several hours in the airing cupboard. I discovered a hair in one of the purple rectangles in the bullet earrings but as I don't like these very much anyway I'm not too bothered! They'll need a couple more days to cure properly then I'll oxidize the copper and add earwires to the other two pairs.

I'm not sure whether to sand the two resin "dots" completely flat in these earrings or leave them. Decisions! You can see my camera reflected in them as I took the photo, it's not another hair :D

I've got to say I am more drawn to the abstract squiggly wire designs and would really like to make earrings using this design. Which means creating a matching pair.... 

I flattened and soldered some more copper wire and rounded it to smooth out any kinks then started playing with my graduated pliers.

I soon discovered the smaller lengths of wire weren't long enough to be able to make anything big enough so I ended up with just one pair of fairly well matched earrings in the making....

These now need to be soldered at the points where the wires touch then filed and sanded flat. Then I'll solder a piece of copper tube to the top for the earwire. I'm really keen to get some more earrings made so I spent some time yesterday afternoon making more lengths of flattened wire - longer this time so I can make a few more pairs today.

Then I'll be able to get the resin and acrylic paints out again and start playing!

The results of all this and the finished earrings should hopefully be posted next week.....