Lessons

Lesson Info

Drilling & Sawing the Metal

So we need to actually to get in the center of our shape here when you drill hole so to do that we actually create a little debate a little seat if you will for the drillbit to sit into made familiar how drillbit actually comes down to a point where we notice that before actually hold a bigger one up to kind of point that out so you might see that it has kind of a coned tip on it comes to a point so when you don't actually do a center punch if you just try to drill straight into the top of this flat piece of metal, it'll skate across and create a really deep scratch that you will not want to get out it's going to take a really long time it's not going to be attractive for your end result so we're going to create a seat by using a center punch and a center punch moving over here the hammering area a center punch is a tool that is basically just a taper point really simple on I'm just going to give one little whack in the center of all these cutouts here what we're going to soon to be cu...

t out where you then khun drill a hole so I'm going to use a ball peen hammer kind of just any ball peen hammer you pick up at any hardware store is fine just loans has a flat face basically it's kind of your work camera that could get dinged up scratch what have you so you don't have tio worry about it, you know, having a clean face will be using a different hammer later on where you it's important that the face of the hammer isn't scratched so um you want to make sure that you're placing the center punch not on the edge of your drawn line because you have to think that you're going to drilling a hole and that's going to be a circle is going to get bigger in that area bigger than what you center punch will be a lot bigger but it's gonna get a little bit bigger so kind of place it in the middle of each shape and the broadest of the largest part of that shape that way giving herself plenty of room to draw that home have to worry about cutting into the edge so hold it at a perfect nine degree angle give it one little whack like that we want to the next shape another whack next shape and so on. And so you've given every shape a seat for the drill bit just like that good chance to see that and you'll be able to see that you've made a good impression if you actually see this halo on the back of the metal, it doesn't have to be super deep, mind you just something it'll catch all right, let's move on to drilling so I'm going to be using a flexible shaft to do my drilling, which is a multipurpose tool. It sort of works like a dremel if you're familiar with that it could hold many different types of tips on dh you've use it with a pedal so sort of like a sewing machine it comes at different speeds. We pulled the pedal out here aiken skewed it forward a little to give you a context so you're controlling the speed now when you're drilling, you don't need to go super fast. This is like she's fast no speed racing through this. We wanted a safety first so kind of keep it at a speed you find that's me that's good and you maintain it, but I need to actually put in my drill bit first so I'm going to start with a fairly small drill bit doesn't need to be big adjust your saw blade just needs to fit through and I'm gonna show these saw blades in a moment and they're very small a lot smaller than you may think so to do that my drill index out of the way, I'm going to use a chuck e which is this tool right here and place it into this notch can see how that fits into the notches and that when I twist one direction the jaws here open up when I close it gets tighter you're going to place your drill bit in the middle of these three kind of teeth if you will I get a little tighter so doesn't slip into the any of the crevices because we do have a small drill bit here placing it in this center make sure that the chief are not in the grips that also so you see some of this flat area, then I'm just hand tightening it just like that. All right, now I'm gonna have a seat here we're gonna be working uh sitting down here for the next bit of time. Now this is a high speed machine, so a lot of dust is going to be kicking up, so it is important that you where safety glasses this is one of those moments where I'll mention throughout class times where it makes more sense to wear them or it's optional this is a must you definitely want to be wearing safety glasses? Somebody put this on, I'm a drilling over would that basically allows me to baby supported and be not actually ruin the drill bit? So I that way it cuts into a soft material basically so I'm lining it up over the hole and I'm pushing down and I made it through the beauty about drilling over wood outside the fact that's not gonna ruin your job it um when you see sought us, you know, you're all the way through just like that, and then you move on to the next one and the next notice how I'm holding a drill or the actual shank here of our flock shop really straight up and down, you're not angling. This is a really straight down movement. Their drill presses special clamps for your fleck shaft so that you can drill a perfectly nine degree angle. But in this context, since we're sawing it out, it's not important, so having it perfectly straight is not ideal. You don't have to be concerned about that, mainly keep it straight up and down just so that you don't break the drop it all right? So now we're ready to saw when we talk about sawing a little bit here, for how often would you need to change your drill bits? How many uses can you get out of each bit? So drill bit honestly, if it's a good, they come in different, you know, different levels there's car by there's titanium tipped those air a lot more for aggressive works, such as cutting into steel brass, a fairly soft metal, a non ferrous metal that's pretty much what we're working in here, and so you don't need to have a drill bit that's. Labeled if you will for metal essentially because those were really for steel and steals significantly more dense or hard than what we're working on here working with so you don't need to be worrying about that. So the actually the last a fair amount of time unless you misuse it essentially it could last you countless amounts of times I can't even give you a number you know um I've had this drill but index let's put it this way for ten plus years ago I like to give you context ok, so now we're ready to saw so let me, uh we're going to be sitting down for that motion, but let me just talk about sawing really quick. So this is your basic saw framed jeweler soft rain there's become in many different sizes uh and the sizes refer to the depth here or the throat as it's referred to. So knows that this is a lot larger than this. The depth here that basically allows you to get into a larger piece is the metal meaning if I had a piece of metal that wass uh, the size of this that I could saw in the middle of this and still actually move all the way around with that saw frame, but if I was using this soft frame, if I try to be in the center, I'm gonna hit here so that's why you may different sizes are available this is your standard size right here which is about three to four inches and that's what we'll be using today I think it's a good place to start they do actually do get smaller but um usually I find that this is a good place to start so we're going to using three odd saw blades which are these tiny little guys right here get a close up on that so this the's blades even though they seem super tiny are very powerful um blades come in many different sizes and that's something I can't get into later if we have time but we're using three odd so to see way the were how the teeth are, what direction they're sitting in you can hold it up in the light when you're loading yourself frame you want the teeth facing down and out out meaning away from you because you're cutting forward so down towards the handle and out um so you take a look at your your teeth here if you have trouble seeing it, you can use optimizers, which is a tool like in reference to you I have one here if you need that it's basically conscious magna fires that you can put over the front of your glasses if you have them or and a lot of jewelers use them to kind of really get in there and see what you're doing if you don't happen to have that, you could actually pull it against your fabric like that when you're pulling down it grabs onto your fabric they're like ok it's in the right direction so I'm gonna load this standing up but there's many different ways of doing it, so when I load my saw frame here, I'm going to start by making sure that the the actual blades it's all the way here at the bottom hand tight now taken notice there's no tension on this plane and it barely fits into the top jaw we're going to push it forward three fourths of the way up and then drop it down and there are maintaining that tension until I get it tight enough here then I release attention and if it's too tight and I'll do it just to it broke wonder about how often do you break so place sob leads so when you buy saw blades, they actually come in a dozen you cannot buy less than a dozen, okay? And they come like that they break very often there are sensitive attention being that we're sitting up here is really important you can't saw properly without the tension being spot on um so if you break that tension it will kind of they will break and so when you're first learning you will break many don't feel bad about it it happens to everyone obviously I still break them and it's just a matter of kind of getting in yourself happy sawing places some people like to refer to because if you don't move just right they will break because the tension is straight up and down here if you push it since I decide it all that's when it's going to break and because I pulled it so tight I pulled it apart because they come in fact twelve do you think twelves enough to get started on for determining I honestly to start? Well, I would say three dozen is actually good, you know most jewelers buy a gross let's just put it that way it's always good to have extra laying around so I'm sorry gross is a dozen of the dozens that would be twelve of these bundles basically so um afflicted hear that kind of high pitched noise that actually means it's tight enough that if you flick it and you see that it can move easily side to side, that means it's not tight enough also if it makes kind of a slump slump like it's a little lower tone than this high pidge thing, then you know that it's not tight enough means you're close so so don't feel like you're totally off of what you're doing but it still means it could be a hair tighter ok, so but for what we're doing actually can't have the blade slipped in there, but this how you normally blow the software and so I'm going to take it at the top there have a seat, so we're sitting here with a bench been this is a standard jewelers tool that allows you to kind of hold on to your material while you're sawing, so it has the grips on each side, but it allows you to move your saw frame around that of either, so I'm actually going tio take my temple, it we're going to do one section at a time slipped my blade through the hole with the pattern not facing me, ok, so I'm not looking at it right now, so when I pull it up right, it'll be facing me, so I'm slipping it down way on the end of thes saw frame here that way, it's not gonna prevent me from being the proper tension on the blade, so once again, three quarters of the way up might need toe move that a little to the side there so I can get that nice and tight, and now we're ready to saw, okay, now we're going to need a little lubrication to help a saw that's what this is here sometimes this is referred to his bird life, um what we have here this particular name is stay sharp it's basically ah lubrication that allows your blade tio cut easily as well as kind of helped kick this the dust of the metal out of the way so you keep a smooth cut so when you use that you just kind of run it up the blade like that creates a little dust no big deal then she put it on the blade or yeah, you should up against the blade and rubbed and since it's so soft it's like a para finned based on wax space it just kind of left all this little chatter there and I'll tell my piece use blow it out of the way so you see what you're doing and you can start cutting now notice that I'm sitting fairly low it's important to actually have your shoulders nearly the same height of the bench pin so please keep that in mind because it makes it easier for you to hold this at a nine degree angles a straight up and down motion so we're going to start now when you change directions with a simple downward stroke my subway it seems like it's a little loose so I might tighten it a hair here and a backup so when you go back up out of your soul just go back to an area words kind of in that loose hole there so you have to worry about it and sometimes that you know, this can happen, you're saw frame can ah, if it's older, sometimes it'll shift around. Sometimes these bolts will actually get a little loose, so re tighten that yeah, now we're back in business, so jogging back into place, I'm not really putting pressure down, I'm just kind of slipping back in now when you're sighing, it's on the down stroke so kind of be my pull that it's you're pushing down and you're pushing forward now when you change directions, though, you can't be cutting while you're doing that, so I'm going to simply it's always easier to cut sawing forward, so I'm going to just jog in place. I'm just moving this up straight up and down, and I'm shifting the medal so that I am sawing straight all right, now we can cut way now, this is this particular pattern is really good um, pattern to practice with because you have to practice straight lines and angle changes, so we're changing direction again, jogging in place, putting forward changing angle again, jogging in place and cutting forward if you find that you're not cutting a smoothly is before you can add lubrication in the middle of your cut by just holding your saw friend there and running that up against the plate again. Always make sure the dust is out of the way so you can see what you're doing change yes sorry how does this how does the technique change or does it change if you're signed straight lines instead of instead of curse so curves and actually about to drop assault curves that's perfect timing so curves the trickiness with so you have your straight lines years going forward, your angles you have to do the job in place like I just mentioned with curves it's the trickiest line structure I will admit because you have to continuously move your saw frame a k saw as well as actually moveon medal at the same time I'm going to do one more shape after this one next to it and I'll start with that curve and you can kind of see that movement bam right through that cut so when you get to the end of a cut this the stress since we're doing piercing, you don't have to necessarily worry about the blade jumping forward there's metal protect you, but let's say you were cutting an exterior shape here, which actually could show you in a minute it wants it pushes forward using all this force you're cutting down and is moving forward so it wants to jump forward, so always be aware of where your fingers are that way you don't have to worry about um jumping forward into your hand so now I'm going to slip it back down to where it was before undo my frame here manhandle that hold on there we go and slip it out okay and actually let's just move on to the curve so that's basically how you can cut from the center let's cut from the outside which we can cut start to cut this curve now I'm going to be using a discover over here in one moment to actually cut out this basic shape the exterior curve but let's say you don't have that available to you how do you solve by hand? So if you're coming in from the outside edge, this is what you're gonna do I just lubed my played some people find it useful if they're having trouble starting a cut to actually kind of go up a little, then pushed down we're doing it and that's a good way to kind of start the cut sometimes it's tricky, so I'm going straight in and now I'm going to start changing directions and you can see it's a subtle movement now why I make this look really easy this is not easy it you have to train your body to hold that you might be able to see this the saw frame it has to be straight up and down if you angle it forward like push it that way and I'll try to use without breaking my blade. This is more tricky. I mean, sometimes you were doing three dimensional projects you need tio but it's all about this flu mur don't. If you don't do the fluid movement, then you will break blaze and then that's part of process to you attention of the actual blade. Are you putting pressure as you're moving forward? Or are you trying to say, I'm pulling down so that's the pressure? Yes, this nice pull down now, it's even catches like that a little bit, then just kind of hit against the bench thin win a blade breaks and actually hold on, let me show you how it breaks again, but well, I'll finish the cotton, it'll break it for you so I'm gonna come outside the cut I'm gonna do what I was mentioned to you about how it kind of jumps forward. So what I like to do when you're near the end of a cut is actually put it to the farther back of the bench, pin the top of the v here that way, when it jumps forward, it goes into the wood and onto your fingers, you'll see how it all kind of pop like I went straight into that do you see how it's into the wood and that's your cut notice to looking at it from the back here how sensitive this is any movement off to one side or the other it's going to pick up on it and you know that's kind of part of the process that's why we use the files which we'll talk about in a minute here to kind of clean up your edge all right, so I have actually way uh pre cut some pieces here but I'm going to show you how to dome or on how to cut use the discoverer so if you're coming from the outside edge that you would just continue all the way around if you break your blamed so let me put this in here again sometimes it will break and we're directions so if I do that it's going to break, so notice me just tilting it ever so slightly that's a nice, really simple clean cut so our break I should say so that sometimes it'll go into your metal that's the case just take some pliers um a players will dio and just kind of pull it out that didn't happen this time so I can't physically show you that is there any questions more about song before I move on one day and you talked about the direction that you should hold the file so you keep going in one direction do they cut him more than one direction so I haven't got to filing quite yet, but someone you're sawing, it's a downward strokes always think towards yourself now when you file so let's say I want to clean up this sets a little chattering, ok, so I'm going to use some files way have needle files here we have flat files, round files, all things like this, they actually in one direction, not in two directions is something that's a little tricky for most people, the kind of grass because people think of fastco nail file so the teeth on lee actually arc up think of scales on a fish. They're only that top curve actually is available, meaning that's the cutting edge so opposed to coming down what you're used to in your song it's, a away from you movement. So I'll support my medal and I'm to push forward top of the file pushing forward. You can see how it's starting to snow that out, getting little marks right there. When you're doing a curve it's, you kind of rolling with the curve to smooth it out, and now that shatter is practically gone, see that it's still okay too far? While you've got the paper template on your cloak, the final toll it won't clog the file at all, and if you need to clean your file, sometimes you see like the metal that's stuck in this and kind of see the brass so there is this tool right here which is easy to use you just brush against it so it's on upward motion it's against it like that and you can see how that's actually disappearing and if your file is clogged it won't cut as evenly and smooth out what you're doing ok so now let's say you do have a discoverer which is his lovely tool over here uh there's my other piece I was looking for now I've cut it all out so I've actually finished doing all of these if I need tio sometimes that's a few if you saw a little off off kilter this is where the needle files come in they come they are in may different shapes here's like a flat pointed one they're basically minute sure versions of your bigger ones and that allows you to kind of get into these crevices here do you support that a little better oh by the way always support your medal while you're finally no air filing please thing in the metal smith in world you want air file because you're kind of battling which are miss stronger if you dont supporting in that's never going to get anywhere so khun see let's say if I I didn't file that quite straight so I'm gonna use my needle file that's a flat one and aiken smooth that out and a time using a file used the whole surface of it. So you started the tip of it and you move forward, ok? And if you're gonna do the curved area so this area down here then you're going to use your half round file which one side is round and one side is flat and you see that and you can use the curve side to do a rocking motion just like that and so you you smooth it out sometimes it's actually good to go back with the sharpie if you have trouble and maybe, um even on the back side and kind of mark a line like ok, this is too much I'm gonna draw a clean line with sharpie and if I can fall not gonna file down to the sharpie line so to help helpful guide. All right, so discover her that's this lovely piece of equipment over here for those of you who get really into this this is a very useful tool allowing you to kind of the ranch here cut perfectly round discs. Okay, you open it up here like that. This is marked at the top here, as you can see, so I'm doing that ancient a fourth shape here since I did have this trace line here it's useful for me to line it up on the inside now this has a spring effect look down in there, so since this clamps down as well as it does want to maintain the quality of that tool, so I'm actually going to take a piece of metal so clean piece of metal that is the same thickness of what I'm cutting and slip it on the other side. This helps balance out the machine when you're cutting so on to make sure that's in the center there I'm just going to clamp it down now this clamp let's say the handle happen to be in your way meaning it's here where I need to hammer you can actually lift up on these and shift it out of the way this particular situation it wasn't in my way, but you just pull up on the handle and pull it out of your way so grab my cutting tool notice how this has shaped the bevel top is you're hammering surface this angled areas you're cutting service very important do not hammer on the wrong side of you would damage your tool significantly um to help make that the tool stay nice and sharp I mean actually at a little bit lubrication so any time he's a coming towards never bad idea drilling any time like that so place that in there I'm actually once again just for the safety of the tool going to use a brass bronze away hammer just to kind of hammer it won't affect the face of this so meaning it won't flare out this edge so once again maintaining the quality of the tool not gonna hammer directly on this it's going to be a little loud and when you actually got all the way through you lift it up and you have a perfectly cut piece I have some pre cut pieces so now we have it cut out in the center we have it cut out in the circle now we're going to remove the paper for a kneeling now because we're going to shape this are actually when you drill our whole first so let's drill our whole the whole for our year wire okay just make sure that there's no glue residue left on it all right? So now this is where you can kind of decide on yourself that you might notice here that with the hearing designed that it's at the top of that kind of point that's where I decided you could do it the opposite way of you want the base if this pattern is centered properly there's enough exterior edge here to put the drill hole wherever you want I'm gonna use a sharpie tio mark where I want that to be move this tool over here when you're done with this could just simply unclip it like that and take your piece out you're all done with that going tio center punch again come back over here with my safety glasses drill my whole straight like that sometimes we get a little bit of a bird there from going through, you might be able to see that full sharp edge you can take a piece of sandpaper or a file and just kind of saying that down so it's smooth all right, let's aneel really quick we're going to give a little dome shaped to our peace then we'll move on to standing so we're using an oxygen propane set up here um and there is a particular order that you need tio do when you're turning this torch on I have a large size tip right now to seven to be more specific, it could be smaller because we're working with a small piece of metal here actually might switch that out really quick neil means neil is a process of heating up your medal to particular temperature that allows you to soften the metal gives it s so when the metal is at a particular at a hardness which it typically is when you purchase it um it is not workable meaning it's work heartened is the term that's referred teo and so you basically, um can'ts ah move it, stretch it, manipulate the metal so that it actually will create a shape be able taken impression things like that