The Jewelry Maker's Field Guide

Book excerpt: Discover a thorough reference guide to metalworking tools and techniques with multiple demos, tutorials, cross-references, and supportive skill-building exercises and projects. Helen I. Driggs, senior editor for Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist , brings her down-to-earth approach and strong metalworking knowledge base to this overview of basic and not-so-basic metalworking techniques. The Jewelry Maker's Field Guide walks you through the variety of metalworking tools available and offers guidance on setting up a studio, buying and organizing supplies, and determining what tools to buy and when. Organizing tools by basic functions, Helen offers a solid and logical overview of metalworking techniques and teaches sets of related skills, showing how different tools can sometimes achieve the same end. Each chapter includes stepped demos and applied techniques for using particular tools. The book culminates in projects that combine a variety of techniques and allow the reader to further apply and practice their metalworking skills. Get a solid foundation for understanding the basic (and not so basic) processes of metalwork!