Saturday, September 8, 2012

Metal Stamping Sterling Silver

 One of my favorite things to do is make personalized jewelry for people.  The set above is my largest complete alphabet set...
 When I first saw this type of jewelry with stamped lettering it was for sale in a magazine and my husband says "You know you can make your own? Those are just metal stamps..." that was about 5 years ago...
 The set above came from my brother-in-law who bought them at a yard sale.  It's one of my favorite sets....
 So the idea is to hold each stamp perpendicular to the metal piece you're stamping and hit it nice and solid one time with a hammer.  
 The letter makes and indention down into the metal....there's not a lot of forgiveness with mistakes :) You can buy "setters" that hold your pieces still and make all the letters perfectly straight.  But I prefer for it to have some imperfections
--- they are truly one of a kind.
The metal is given a patina which settles down into the stamped letters or numbers and then the piece is cleaned so the patina (darkened metal) is only in the indentions.  I use a 400 grit sandpaper to clean the surface and then usually a piece of scotch brite to give it a brushed finish.

2 comments:

  1. I often wear the necklace I won at a giveaway that you made. I love it. I have "tried" stamping some silver - it is a LOT harder than it looks. I am glad that you took to it like a duck to water. Your items are incredible.

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  2. Thanks for sharing the information about process of making metal stamping press. The required materials for making metal stamps are stainless steel, hammer and marker. The metal die is placed in metal stamping press and the completed metal part is removed from the Stamping On Metal.

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