A selection of jewellery making snips, cutters and pliers

I’ve put together a list of some basic tools which my jewellery students tend to find most useful. They are also ones that I use constantly on a daily basis. Getting a basic jewellery tool setup needn’t be expensive and you can make a huge amount of jewellery with a small range of handtools. You will be adding to these as you go, it’s like anything else – there’s always a handy tool that makes a particular job easier!

My husband bought me a lot of my initial tools, for birthdays and Christmas, so I started out with a good range – most of which I still have and use today.

Basic affordable jewellery saw

Basic jewellery making saws

  • A good saw will hold a straight line
  • It will keep a tight grip on the blade so that you’re not constantly having to re-tighten it
  • The shorter the saws usually nice and rigid
  • Longer saw frames are available and some of them have a lattice work in their construction to make them light but stiff – for accurate cutting of silver and gold sheet
A selection of hand files for metalworking

Files

  • Use larger files for shifting excess silver quickly
  • Use needle files for more delicate work. Sutton Tools has a great range of files sets – from budget file sets (which are good value for the money) through to the premium Vallorbe needle files. I have had some Vallorbe files for some time and their quality is excellent.
A selection of hammers, light to heavy

Hammers

Jewellery hammers are lighter than your usual DIY hammers, although those can be used too – especially a ball pein hammer. They help you texture, bend, spread metal and flatten curves that are too curvy!

Ball Pein – Great general use hammer. The ball can be used for creating a textured surface or splaying rivets.
Cross Pein – This is a general use hammer and a budget one doesn’t cost much.

Cooksons gold sandpaper range

Sandpaper

Invaluable stuff which helps remove tool marks and scratches. Make sure you have a range of grits from really rough 180 grit through to ultra fine 1200 grit for finishing off. These can be glued to wood to make them more file like, or you can just wrap them around dowel sticks or other thin, square profiled wood and change the paper easily when it loses its edge.

autosol metal polish tube

Metal polish

Autosol is a great polish that I’ve used for years but there are a load of others out there that will work. Some fuel stations (with a Spar shop) stock these.

Vernier Calipers for measuring thicknesses of precious metals

Vernier

A really handy tool for measuring small things to a very accurate level. They aren’t cheap but are invaluable for measuring material thickness, wire diameters, stone sizes and more. The digital version is easier to read than the analogue version initially but it’s down to personal choice.