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    My name's Sophia, and I like to make things.

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    What’s in my toolkit

    November 9, 2015

    workbench

    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

    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

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