What You Need to start Making Metal Hand Stamped Jewellery

This is a list of what you will need to get stared in making your own hand stamped jewellery.

Any Questions just ask, Thank you xx

Blanks

Aluminium is the easiest (and probably the cheapest) metal to start out with. You can also try copper, brass, stainless steel, silver or even gold if you're crazy! Blanks come in different thickness's, shapes and sizes, You will learn by Trail and error what works best for you. 

Laser Cut Aluminium Blanks

These have have been laser cut and are a much darker Aluminium. they have a nobble on the side that needs to be filed away. These look amazing Tumbled and shine up to a mirror Shine.

Hand Punch Aluminium Blanks

These have a protective layer on the side that you stamp and have a nice smooth edge to them from the punch. These need much less work to polish and shine as you can use a 4 way nail buffer to shine the blank, however if yu want to harden the metal then Tumbling will be the best way to finish the blank.

Letter Font Sets

There are many different sets of Fonts that are available and range in price from cheap to very expensive. Impressart and Beadsmith to a basic range which are well priced to get you started. Its what you like and feel comfortable using. The Most popular size to start with is around 3mm. Bridgette from Impressart and Handwritten from Beadmsith seem to be very popular first time fonts and are very popular with customers.

Hammer

When it comes to choose a hammer there are a few to choose from. The brass hammers absorb the shock from hitting the stamp and cause less damage to the stamp itself. Impressart and Beadsmith do a 1lb and 8oz Brass hammer that are specifically design for use with metal stamping letter sets. You can use a stubby hammer, this small hammer can be purchased relatively cheaply from places like B&Q, however they can damage your stamps over time.

Steel block

A Steel block is required to absorb the shock and stops the tamp double imprinting on the blank and creates a crisper image. You can use a rubber block under your Steel block so dampen the noise. As this can be Quite a loud hobby.

Hole punch

There are many different types of punches, from Twist punches or grip punches to The Might Power Punch. The Power Punch has 7 different size dies so you can change the dies depending on the size of hole that you required.

Tape

Masking or electrical tape is needed to tape the blank to the steel block to stop it moving as you stamp it. The tape can also be used to help line your letters up. A lot of people also cover their steel block in tape to help reduce the letter stamped being visible on the reverse of the blank.

Colouring/Inking the Stamp

The most popular way to colour Aluminium is by using a Sharpie or paint pen. Liver of Sulphur will not work on Aluminium like it will on silver, gold or copper.

4 sided nail buffer

Unless you buy finished blanks you will need to polish them somehow, you could buy a tumbler (there is a separate file on tumblers) but a cheap way of polishing is to use a 4 sided nail buffer and work through the grades from 1 to 4. It's generally better to do the majority of this before you stamp and then just touch things up once you're done.

Tumbler

Metal tumbling is used to burnish, deburr, clean, radius, de-flash, descale, remove rust, polish, brighten, surface harden, prepare parts for further finishing. This is done using a rotary rock Tumbler. With either a Rubber or Plastic Barrel. The metal is placed into the barrel with the correct weight of stainless steel Ball bearings and liquid soap b. You can also use the green coloured Fairy washing up liquid. The correct weight of ball bearings will be determined by the size of your tumbler.