More About Tube.
Seamless tubing is very versatile, but its most common use is for mounting stones, taking it either straight from stock or more elegantly, made into tapered collets in a collet block. You need some practice to do this well. Another application is for making hinges and if the size of joint tubing available is not to your liking, you can thicken the walls by drawing down normal tubing, starting with about four sizes bigger than needed. As it comes in straight lengths, it can also be used as a light-weight rod, but it needs to remain vented to avoid trapping air or pickle.
Round tubing can be cut with a miniature tube cutter, from model makers’ suppliers, which uses sharp disks, but it does leave a slight constriction at the cut end and it is limited to the larger sizes.
The cutting jig favoured by jewellers has a deep groove in which to seat the tubing, a lever to hold it down and a slot to guide the saw blade. It can also be used for rod or strip. The handle may be clamped in a vice, or held in the notch of a bench peg. Once you have decided on a size of saw blade convenient for you, for instance 3/0, you can unscrew the outer plate and rub down the spacers so that the saw will fit into the slot more snugly and make a straighter cut. It also helps to tension the blade well. The stem of the length stop can be customised by marking it at intervals with saw cuts.
As the outer plate of the device is made of hardened metal it can be treated as a filing block for trueing ends, but the real tool for this is the Bergeon chenier clamp. It is expensive and must be regarded as a luxury item, but it will allow you to file the ends of tube rod or strip to a perfect right angle, or to 45 degrees. It is also good for holding strip and wire when cutting and filing a V-shaped groove and for holding tubing to prepare it for stone setting.
By feeding in copper wire, stripped electrical cable, or flex that fits, round tubing can be bent on a mandrel or wire bending jig without collapsing. The wire is then extracted by pulling it back-to-front through a hole in the face of a drawplate, which will hold back the tube. My main reason for doing this is to make supporting bails for pendants to fit thin snake chain, or cable. However after soldering on a jump ring, the inside often becomes too rough to introduce the chain. This can be dealt with by polishing with wet string and scouring powder. It also helps to file the end of snake chain to form a taper.
Below: Test tube pepper and salt set , pourers and upright made from round tubing.
Blue topaz and aqua pendant made from square tubing
Amethyst pendant with square tube decorations and round tube support.
The common tube cutting jig and the Bergeon chenier clamp. Dennis.
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Originally Posted by medusa
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