What’s in my toolkit

November 9, 2015

When I started renting space at Scintillant Studio, I found myself in a novel situation: for the first time since I’d started silversmithing, I couldn’t rely entirely on using someone else’s tools. Scintillant provides the heavier lifts — the tanks and torches, flex shafts, polishing tools, and a whole range of hammers and mallets. Hand tools, however, are another story: I had to make a quick investment in buffing wheels & polishes, a jewelry saw, sandpaper sticks, solders and flux, specialty pliers…relatively minor things but all things I’d relied on previous studios to provide.

In the time that’s elapsed since, I’ve continued adding to my toolkit — such that the next time I move studios, I should be in pretty good shape from a tools perspective. For the most part, everything lives in plastic boxes in my locker at the studio, but there are some things I carry back and forth — stones and some of my metal, some of my pliers and polishing cloths live in their own portable kit.

Here’s a breakdown of what lives in my kits.

Pliers & Cutters

Half-round
Forming, graduated
Flat-nose
Needle-nose
Round-nose
Diagonal flush cutters
Xuron flush cutters
Crimp pliers
Shears
Drill bits in varying sizes
Cup burs
Jeweler’s saw and blades

For soldering
Cross-lock tweezers
Titanium soldering picks
Small paintbrushes
Handy-flux

Filing & sanding & polishing
Sanding sticks (200, 320 and 400 wet-dry grit)
Swiss hand file
Swiss needle files
Bur-life lubricant (for everything)
Polishing disks (for the flex shaft)
Rouge & tripoli

Stone setting
Beeswax (great for holding stones while I set them)
Burnisher
Steel bezel pusher
Prong-pusher
Loupe
Hart burs
Stone-setting burs

…Everything else.
Alligator tape
Dust masks (the polishers contain all kinds of bad things nobody should have in their lungs)
Ring clamp
Digital caliper
Center punch