I am getting back into my metal smithing groove after not being able to work at my little jewellery bench for 3 months, by looking at different ways of adding textures and designs to metal

I woke up this morning with so many creative ideas of how I can add custom interest to my metal work by usiing textures.

In the past I have used hammers to create different textures, but I wanted something a little more unique as this is the standard go to for most metal smith jewellers especially those who are starting up.

Previously I looked at using my rolling mill to create a couple of bespoke texture plates, which did not turn out too successful, so I have put that idea on the back burner for now.

Now stamping is a different proposition, and should be relatively straight forward!

With this in mind, I brought a few metal stamps, around the time lockdown for the Coronavirus started, and thought what better way to relieve some design frustration than stamping some designs on some metal.

I have always like swirls and I have a soft spot for dandelions, so when I saw these stamps I just had to have them:
 

How hard can it be?

As a test I found some scrap aluminium, which in hindsight was not a good idea, as it lulled me into a false sense of security, with regards how hard I need to hit the stamps to get a decent imprint.

The next piece of metal to get the stamping treatment was some scrap copper with the bar stamp.

When it comes to my designs and ideas, they tend to form organically, so very little measuring happens and its usually done by eye, which can be a problem when you are trying to create something that needs to be identical!

As I have now moved on to creating some small sterling silver geometric shapes, as a way to test my sawing skills, I think these would be ideal to create some simple stamped studs.

And this is where my plan unrevels a little.

I take the 4 bar stamp, and whack it with my brass mallet as I have done with the other metals, suprisingly the imprint is less than impressive, who knew that silver needs a good whacking to get any real imprint on it.

Not to give up I take a second larger pair of square studs I created, and give them a good whack twice this time, I get a better stamp, but its not uniform, but I kind of like the effect:
 

Up next I try out the small swirl stamp, now this time I do pay better attention to which way the stamp is up, and try and centre it with in the geometric shapes.

2 whacks later, and this is what I get:
 

Now the creative juices are really beginning to flow, and I had cut out some rectangular geomertic shapes, and I just wanted to play around with some simple geometric punch shapes, to see what I could achieve as a design.

Again totally organic, no measuring purely eye!
 

The next decision for me is do I leave them like this, or do I oxidise the studs to make the stamps stand out?

What do you guys think?

Joolz xxx
 

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July 04, 2020

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