Jewellery Making Supplies Blog

For PMC beginners the most confusing thing is, “What tools do I need?”, so here are a few suggestions to help you along the way:

PMC Suggested TOOLS:

A roller – used for rolling out the clay

A rolling surface – Non-stick as possible e.g. a glass board or polished tile

Spacers or playing cards – for getting the depth of the clay even

Cutting blade, scalpel – For getting straight edges and making your shapes.

A small lidded pot – to put filings & tiny offcuts into so you can save them for making silver clay paste or slip

Various grades of sanding pads - or get a 4 way nail filing block and strip the sides off.

Badger Balm or Olive Oil for stopping the clay sticking to your hands and tools.

FIRING METHODS:

For Hob firing, stainless steel mesh with protection net.

Torch firing – Handheld torch and a firing brick (asbestos substitute not a household brick )

Kiln – If you can get access to a kiln then use it, the metal is normally denser and the results more consistant.

Stainless steel or brass brush – for brushing off the white post firing and leaving you lovely silver.

Silver polish & Cloth – for getting the final buffed up shine.

Some Optional Extras:

For ring making – A sliding ring guage, A wooden ring mandrel, and ring papers (to stop clay sticking to the mandrel).

For Better finishes – A small set of metal files for neatening edges quicker than sanding them down.

Long Tweezers – For holding / moving the pieces when firing

Liver of Sulpher – For antiquing or bringing out fine detail

Burnishers & ultra fine sanding pads – Post firing for a REAL shine!

Cutters & Shapers – Using pre-shaped cutters e.g. hearts will same time and give you more consistant shapes

Tiny drill bits – you can twist them in your fingers to drill through the unfired clay & make jump ring holes & hanging points.

Texture Mats/plates – Roll the clay out on these and you’ll have fabulous patterns straight away!

Letter Stamp Set – For stamping words into unfired (rubber stamps) or fired clay (metal stamps).

Why not check out our ready-assembled Starter Precious Metal Clay kit packed with everything you could possibley need to get started with PMC. Alternatively, if your not a PMC novice click here to view our full range of silver clay kits including our Art Clay kit and complete silver clay accessories kit, tumbler kit and tool kit.

Tags: art clay, clay, clay kit, jewellery making, Jewellery Tips, pmc, pmc kit, pmc tools, precious metal clay, silver clay

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Jewellery Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.