Tools for Sketching & Making Jewelry

Video Transcript

"I'm D.J. Poye professional Jeweler/Gemologist and I'm here today on behalf of Expert Village. The next particular one that I did was a little bit smaller and as you can tell, I connected the pieces together right here because of using a flat sheet of metal. We're going to use silver today, 20-gage. I wanted the pieces, to of course, to touch so you have more strength in the piece. Within this piece right here, I still had to take it down even a little bit more. We're going to go into a phase. I drew a smaller one up. We're going to be doing 2-3/4 inch by 1.5 inch. That will be a nice sized pendant. I basically I keep on making the renderings smaller and smaller and finally fine tune it. Very fine tune. I used a simple drawing pencil. On tracing paper, you need to use a nice eraser that will erase it, that won't smear it. Sometimes I like to use darker lines with a permanent fine tip marker. I use a millimeter gage if I need to measure certain things which is strictly a metric measuring technique that most jewelers use. And of course, a small retractable measuring tape, and some scissors. I always also use a simple metal ruler because they really work great and can give you the great dimensions right off the bat. Before we move forward to move the last rendering on the metal, I do want to tell you one more thing again. As I make these pieces in my mind, there a little bit more freer in a state of these first two beginning renderings. But then, like I said, when I have to move forward to placing them on the metal and making the design work as a piece of jewelry and art, then I have to do the mechanics and engineering to make sure the piece is going to be wearable. It's going to be strong enough. Here we have the more free flowing rendering, and here we have the completed rendering. "