Mini Tools - Worth Plying and Buying?

Some silversmithing tools need to be hefty, to have some weight to them, to allow them to do the job they need to do. Others are able to combine some strength with deceptive delicacy.

I have a lot of pliers, all around 10 or 11 centimetres (4 or 5 inches) long, all collected piecemeal and utilised with varying degrees of success - many are used regularly but some languish in a "spare toolbox" and are tools of last resort.

A while ago I treated myself to a set of mini pliers, wrapped up tidily in their own case. I was intrigued to find out what quality they were and if they served any real purpose other than, well, being small and so more convenient to store.




The pliers are indeed mini, measuring around 8 cm (3 inches) each, and this decrease in size is felt in the handle more than elsewhere. But the heads of the pliers (round-, needle-, and flat-nosed and one side cutter) are all as well-formed as any other plier in a comparable (budget, in this case) price range and, while obviously a little smaller than a typical version, are still usable and effective.

The handles are well-shaped but their smaller length makes it harder to use them as comfortably as typically-sized pliers - I find with the latter much of my hand works the tool, whereas with the smaller version that action is more confined to the first two fingers.




However, for quick fixes and repairs, for times when you've packed everything away but really need a tool that's easy to lay your hands on, then this set is neat and ideal. The pliers also well-sized for working with very small items. For prolonged work I would find them a little tiring and fiddly and probably wouldn't choose them over larger sized tools, if they were easily available.

If you're just starting out or if you fancy smaller tools for more delicate work, then mini pliers may well be worth trying. Buying a set of pliers is a handy way to get the most used tools for simple jewellery making and these are usable, portable, and useful. I've made earrings and necklaces with this set and found the pliers and cutter excellent with very delicate sterling silver wire and tiny gemstones.

I'm not one to have superfluous tools ("spare toolbox" aside) but useful tools, even if they're near copies of other tools, will find a place in my main toolbox every time.

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Please note: this post contains no affiliate links and I have no connection with any manufacturer or retailer of jewellery tools.

Broken tools...

The collection of tools that I use for jewellery making has been built up over years on a need-to-have basis. It's also been built up quite cheaply. But I've grown used to my mismatched pliers and wire cutters and have my favourites and others that are consigned to a box for emergency use only. Or when someone wants to borrow one of my tools for a non-jewellery task (this does happen, although thankfully not frequently - I keep my tools carefully to make sure they do their best for the silver).

It's proved quite handy that most of them have different coloured handles (I know which pair I'm reaching for by colour) rather than having a matching set and while I've wondered at times what the difference really is between a £5 pair of pliers and a £50 pair, I've not worried too much because the tools I have work and I'm (mostly) happy with them.

So it was with some consternation that I discovered my trusty wire cutters (yellow, bought circa 2005 in Sheffield, I believe, for around £4) were broken. A quick survey of the damage led me to the conclusion that they should still work for the time being, albeit with a slightly different style of action, and so I wasn't made to either explore my stash of emergency-only tools or dash to the local hardware shop for a rushed replacement.

But it did make me wonder what those jewellers with expensive tools would say the advantages are over cheaper ones. Are they worth the extra expensive? What is the difference? Should I indulge in a branded set of wire cutters when I do replace mine?

Please do leave a comment if you've any advice or even if you just know how it feels when a trusty tool, of whatever monetary value, passes its sell-by date...

New Tools for a New Season

Shiny new tools are one of the strangest things you develop a fascination for when you fall in love with making metal jewellery…The arrival of tool catalogues was always received with joy at my silversmithing classes, along with much disappointment if we didn’t have enough for everyone…

Not that tools are particularly indulgent. It may well seem that way when you find a bargain set of pliers on a market stall for a couple of quid, and yet a top of the range pair can easily cost well over fifty pounds. And I’ve been told that you really can notice the difference, both in terms of the quality of the tool and also the way it treats your work.

My own pliers are, on the whole, a motley collection assembled piecemeal over the years (and all have different coloured handles, which is such an unlooked-for bonus) - I have used high quality tools and can verify that the difference often isn’t in how damaged your bank balance looks but in the marks, intentional and not, that are left on the precious metals you're working with…

But I also have some super-cheap tools that really are super. A set of reverse angle pliers, one straight and one angled, are truly excellent and have done me great service for many years now - they came into my hands for around a pound each. I’ll happily seek out some of a similar calibre (and price) when these finally succumb to time but, looking at them, it won’t be for a while yet.

My latest tools aren’t not of the expensive kind but are decent quality and do a wonderful job. Plus, they were gifts, which makes them even sweeter.

The first is a set of two tiny mandrels, perfect for rounding up jump-rings ranging from pretty small to, well, far smaller than would fit on a typical ring mandrel.



Having used a variety of ‘home-made’ mandrels for such tasks in the past, it feels rather indulgent – and yet so much easier – to now have a metal tool that can tolerate a little more hammering than a leaky Biro.

The second tool is another mandrel, this one most certainly plastic (and so needing of slightly more careful treatment) but also made for the job and, so far, pretty sturdy.


The Beadsmith multi-mandrel consists of a handle and four interchangeable mandrel heads – in round, oval, square and triangular shapes. So far, oval and round have got the most use, but I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of softly curving triangles and hope the mandrel for this will prove helpful in future experimentations.

These are the first new tools I've had in a while now and I've been pleased at how they seem to expand not only what I can do (and the ease I can do with it) but also ideas and inspirations seem to flow more easily...anyone else experience that, and does anyone have ideas for tools that I should add to my wish-list?

{NB. The link to the Beadmsith mandrel from this post is an Amazon  UK affiliate link. This means that if you click through to the mandrel and then go on to buy it on Amazon, the nice people who run the company will give me money. From their own stash! And it will cost you nothing!! If I ever earn enough to qualify for payment, the money will go to my very needy rolling machine fund which currently contains only copper coins. For more info on my affiliate links, take a look at the bottom of my about page. Ta muchly.}

The work bench was just where I left it!

The work bench really was just where I left it!

This week, I'm happy to say, I persuaded myself  back to my work bench.

I found tools, silver, and inspiration, helped along by having a bit of a plan - the focus has been hearts and I've tried to stay with this, and not get distracted by half-finished other projects that I come across as I look through those little plastic bags that most of my silver is kept in...

And I even reached the stage where I could list something on Folksy - quite a result when inspiration and motivation, and all that jazz, are low.

Silver and pearl and heart necklace

So take heart (sorry, bad pun) if you're feeling post-new-year-lag creeping on and on. It will pass.

My purple notebook of Ideas

For several years now (slightly over three of them, to be more precise), I have used a special tool when I make jewellery. I use this very tool every time I sit down with silver to hand, and it sits on the table alongside soldering torch and piercing saw, pliers and snips.

It's an A5 purple notebook, not an expensive one, and not even a particularly nice one. If I'd known it would be with me so long, and become so important to me, then I suspect I would have chosen something a little more special to look at. But it's a hardback, its cover is wipe clean and that's always handy in the workroom, and the purple colour is distinctive enough that I can normally find it amongst heaps of emery paper, or under plastic bags half-filled with silver off-cuts and dust.

For many years when I started making jewellery, I winged it. I always promised myself I'd make notes, jot ideas down, make sure I knew what I used to get which effect, both to replicate successes, and to avoid repeating disasters. I just didn't get round to it until the purple notebook came along.

Very rarely now do I not use it when I work. If I don't use it at the time, I fill it in later. I add the date, draw some truly amateurish sketches of ideas that I'm going to try, annotating them when they don't work out, or adding details such as trying a different wire gauge, or a different length of silver. I draw little images of things that have worked, sometimes using a shorthand of a big tick next to them. As my writing is normally an illegible scrawl, a large tick by a familiar looking design is a great shorthand when I'm flicking through, trying to find just the right 'ingredients' of silver and skills that I need to recreate a particular style.

And I have found this invaluable time and again, to have a written note of things that work, as much as things that don't. If several weeks or months have passed between me 'perfecting' (as much as you ever can) a new idea and then trying it again, it saves an afternoon of frustration if I know exactly what I need to do, rather than having to make some educated guesses, and then find they're not as intelligent as I thought they were.

The notebook is equally as handy for jotting down inspiration for designs as they come to me. Working with silver can easily spark new inspiration for how to use it (often in the middle of something else, when it's inconvenient to take that inspiration any further). But a small note in that old purple book means I can return to that same idea, expand upon it, and add the same positives and negatives that inevitably arise as I attempt to turn a flat, pencil sketch into a living piece of jewellery.

I do regret, very slightly, not using a spiral bound book, something that would lay open on the table easily, but that aside, I'm more than happy with what has become so important to me. In both front and back, receipts and invoices are tucked away, along with a few dried leaves, kept for inspiration and memory.

Whilst it's not a tool in the conventional sense, in terms of making jewellery, it's one I'd recommend anyone interested in designing, in any type of craft, to invest in. You don't have to keep it with you all the time, although it might be worth having a small notebook around for that purpose, but it is worth having some kind of record of your ideas, your failures, and your successes  - and how you achieved them.

Does anyone else have a notebook that's also a time and lifesaver? Links to similar posts are most welcome!


PS. If you read the comments you'll notice that Vic said she was going to do her own notebook post - and she did! Do check it out.

If I had . . .

I didn't expect tools would mean much to me, once being merely a means to an end that lived in someone else's garage. But now, well, I have been known to retire to bed of an evening with a tool catalogue to flick through.

Over the weekend I began a sort through of my smithing/jewellery making drawers and sections. I find it necessary to do this periodically as things get put away in the wrong place, anywhere room can be found, or, even, naughtily, not at all. The latter is the case for some lost items which the clear-out, prompted by their loss, has failed to materialise so far. Oh dear.

But I did find a few things I'd forgotten I do have, including a couple of old hammers with fantastic bruised heads, full of texture to be imparted with one swift blow to some receptive (and annealed!) silver.



I'd be fascinated to know about other people's tools, which are the most important, which have sentimental value, which always get lost . . . do share!