The Bench Journal

Ring Blank Length: How Long to Cut the Strip for Any UK Size
Ring Blank Length: How Long to Cut the Strip for Any UK Size
The (inside diameter + thickness) × π formula for ring blanks, with a worked UK size N example, why the inside circumference alone comes out small, and the test-ring habit... Read more...
Ring-Bending & Forming Pliers: Half-Round, Nylon, Anticlastic & Synclastic
Ring-Bending & Forming Pliers: Half-Round, Nylon, Anticlastic & Synclastic
Why flat pliers kink curves, and what each forming plier does: half-round for ring shanks, nylon jaws for finished work, anticlastic for saddle curves and synclastic for dome-like curves, with... Read more...
Marking Out Metal: How to Use Dividers and a Scriber
Marking Out Metal: How to Use Dividers and a Scriber
Marking out for jewellers: inking the metal, scribing against a rule, scribing parallel lines and circles with dividers, walking equal spacing, finding a disc's centre and marking drill points. Read more...
How to Size and Make a Solid Bangle on a Bracelet Mandrel
How to Size and Make a Solid Bangle on a Bracelet Mandrel
Measure the hand, not the wrist: how to size a closed bangle, calculate blank length, solder and round it on a bangle mandrel, and check the hallmarking weight before you... Read more...
How to Remove Links from a Metal Watch Bracelet
How to Remove Links from a Metal Watch Bracelet
Shorten a metal watch bracelet safely: count the links, take them from both sides of the clasp, tell screws from pins, follow the arrows, keep the collars and refit the... Read more...
How to Knot Between Pearls: Tools and Technique
How to Knot Between Pearls: Tools and Technique
Why pearls are knotted, the knotting tool, awl and tweezer options, thread and needle choice, and the step-by-step overhand knot that gives an even, professional strand. Read more...
How to Crimp Beading Wire: The Two-Step Crimp That Holds
How to Crimp Beading Wire: The Two-Step Crimp That Holds
The two-step folded crimp explained: choosing crimp tubes and crimping pliers, the back-notch and front-notch squeezes, the gap at the clasp, and the tug-test that stops strung work coming back... Read more...
How to Clean, Oil & Maintain Jewellery Pliers and Cutters
How to Clean, Oil & Maintain Jewellery Pliers and Cutters
A simple care routine for jewellery pliers and cutters: wiping after use, oiling the joint, polishing nicks out of the jaws, protecting cutting edges from hard wire, and dry, upright... Read more...
Christmas Gifts for Jewellery Makers 2026: Ideas by Budget
Christmas Gifts for Jewellery Makers 2026: Ideas by Budget
Christmas 2026 gift ideas for jewellery makers, by budget and by the kind of making they do, plus three quiet questions to ask first and our delivery and returns details. Read more...
Bail-Making & Stepped Looping Pliers: Identical Loops Every Time
Bail-Making & Stepped Looping Pliers: Identical Loops Every Time
Bail-making and stepped looping pliers swap tapered jaws for fixed-diameter barrels. Which sizes and profiles to buy first, and the bench habits that make a whole batch of bails, ear... Read more...
Selling Your Jewellery at UK Craft Fairs
Selling Your Jewellery at UK Craft Fairs: A Maker's First Stall
Fees, insurance, display, stock and the sums nobody posts about — a calm, practical playbook for a maker's first craft-fair stall, from the £5m liability certificate to the follow-up that... Read more...
Wire-Wrapped Settings
Wire-Wrapped Settings: Stone Setting with No Torch at All
Stone setting with no torch: the border-wrap frame for cabochons, a cold-built wire claw for faceted stones, the briolette wrap for drops, and neat coil finishing. Plus wire temper and... Read more...
Reading UK Hallmarks
Reading UK Hallmarks: What Those Tiny Marks Actually Say
Sponsor, fineness, town mark, date letter — a working decode of British hallmarks, the weight thresholds that make 'unhallmarked' legal or suspect, and the loupe habits that catch cast, rubbed... Read more...
Soldering Complex Pieces
Soldering Complex Pieces: Heat Staging, Solder Grades & Not Undoing Your Work
How to solder a piece with many joins and keep every earlier seam intact: grading solder from hard to easy, heating the whole piece rather than the pallion, heat sinks... Read more...
Common Jewellery Repairs at the Bench
Common Jewellery Repairs at the Bench: Where to Start
From sizing and split shanks to re-tipping claws and mending chains: the repairs a starting bench jeweller actually sees, the trap hidden in each one, and when declining a job... Read more...
Tube Hinges & Chenier
Tube Hinges & Chenier: Small Mechanics for Boxes and Lockets
The classic three-knuckle tube hinge, step by step: choosing chenier, cutting knuckles dead square, filing the bearing groove, soldering the 2+1 pattern without freezing the action, and fitting the pin... Read more...
Satin, Matte & Brushed
Satin, Matte & Brushed: Finishes Beyond the Mirror Polish
Not every piece wants a mirror. Here is how satin, brushed, matte and frosted finishes are made — wire wheels, pumice, tumbling media and tape-masked contrast — when each one... Read more...
Piercing & Fretwork
Piercing & Fretwork: Cutting Designs from Sheet
Piercing turns the saw into a drawing instrument. Here is the full order of work — pattern transfer, pilot holes, interior-first cutting, tight corners and edge cleanup — plus the... Read more...
Torch-Fired Enamelling
Torch-Fired Enamelling: Colour on Metal Without a Kiln
Vitreous enamel is ground glass fused onto metal, and a bench torch will fire small copper pieces without any kiln. This guide walks through preparation, sifting, firing from beneath, layering... Read more...
Granulation
Granulation: Fusing Tiny Silver Spheres, the Ancient Way
Granulation decorates metal with tiny spheres fused — not soldered — to the surface, a technique the Etruscans perfected three millennia ago. This guide covers making and sorting fine-silver granules,... Read more...
Cleaning & Caring for Finished Jewellery
Cleaning & Caring for Finished Jewellery: Ultrasonic, Steam & by Hand
Clean a piece wrong and you scratch metal or crack a stone. Here’s how to clean finished jewellery by hand, by ultrasonic and by steam — and the stones that... Read more...
Photographing Your Handmade Jewellery
Photographing Your Handmade Jewellery (Without a Studio)
You don’t need a studio to shoot jewellery well — just a window, a bounce card and a steady phone. Here’s how to get sharp focus, true metal colour and... Read more...
Chain Making by Hand
Chain Making by Hand: Loop-in-Loop & Simple Links
How to make chain at the bench — winding and saw-cutting identical jump rings on a mandrel, closing each join flush, soldering a simple round-link chain, and weaving the ancient... Read more...
Keum-boo gold foil bonded to a silver pendant, with burnishers on cream linen
Keum-Boo: Bonding Gold Leaf to Silver
The Korean art of diffusion-bonding thin 24k gold foil onto silver with heat and a burnisher — no solder and no plating tank. We cover why the technique needs fine... Read more...