What's the absolute basic toolkit you need for waxcarving? This question popped up on a jeweller's social media forum recently. Lots of people contributed their views, some we agreed with, some not so much.

Here is our answer. It's not the definitive list, there really isn't one. It's just our opinion, based on our experience over many years, both as practitioners and tutors.

If you're a practicing jeweller or goldsmith, you will have some tools that will function. Undoubtedly a piercing saw frame, hand/needle files, emery paper etc, so we'll take that as read.

We'll also assume that you are a novice and may not want to invest much money on something that may not turn out to be useful to you.

All these tools are in our other blog posts or the shop, so we won't go to any length describing their use, as we've already covered this elsewhere.

Absolute essentials:

Scraping tools. We recommend our own modified scalpel tips for sale here on the website, the product of many, many years of refining. You'll need a handle to go with them, there's a lot available online at very reasonable prices, check our recommendations in the shop before choosing if you don't want to buy from us. Many jewellers suppliers sell sets of dental tools that are also very reasonably priced, but not as fit for purpose.

Sawblades. Wax will clog your ordinary piercing saw blades, you'll need something coarser. Spiral wax saw blades are your best option for primary cutting. If you have a coping saw already, this also works very well. A coping saw blade with the ends snapped off to fit your piercing saw is another option and pretty much lasts forever. For more refined sawing, Skip-a-tooth sawblades are best.

Wax-file. The double ended half round wax-file is a great investment. For filing large amounts of wax away quickly. It can be quite refined too, when used with appropriate care. If you're not going to invest in a ring-sizer, it's useful for sizing rings. For more refined filing your regular files should work fine.

Ring-sizer: For sizing rings, easily available online. If you're unsure, buy from a reputable jewellery supplier. However the wax file will function in place of this if you don't want to invest just yet.

Wax. Obviously you'll need some of this too. For a beginner, use blue. It's what we start all our students with. The most versatile shape for ring tube is the U shape, you can file any ring out of this, even if you have to do some extra filing, the same cannot be said for the other shapes. A box of mixed slices is a good to start with too. The slices do have a rough surface so will need some preparation before use.

That's it, you're good to go at the most basic level. We'll put up a next level of tool acquisition in the near future.

22/5/2020

 Click on the images to enlarge

Portable Electric Engraving Tool

These things have been appearing in my social media feeds for some time now, so I thought I'd give one a try, with a view to seeing how it performs with wax.

They're pretty cheap from Ebay and such like, so it could have potential as starting kit for my students and beginners. There's never enough micromotors or pendant motors to go around at college; for a very small investment this could be a good solution.

The one I bought was £26. In the box was the Pen, a charging cable, an instruction leaflet and a box containing a bunch of diamond tools. There was three circular saw tools in the box too, but frankly they look like an injury waiting to happen.

The pen has three speeds, 5000 – 10000 – 18000 rpm apparently. They estimate use time at one hour. I haven't tested for that long yet, but I suspect that will come down significantly depending on speed and work.

It accepts standard 2.3mm shaft burrs. There is no chuck as such, just insert the burr into the end of the pen until you feel resistance, then push more until the burr is gripped by what I assume is an internal rubber chuck.

Press the power button to set it running, again to increase the speed, a third time for top speed and a fourth to turn it off.

I found it quite pleasant to use; it's light and easy to hold. The 16mm diameter is slimmer than most micro drills, coupled with the light weight this gives plenty of control.

It has a little more torque than I was expecting, not that you need a lot of torque working with wax. It works well with standard burrs; I tried a range between 0.5 and 5.0mm and was satisfied with all of them. I preferred the slowest speed. As always the best way to use burrs with wax is to keep a light touch and don't let friction melt wax onto the burr. It even worked with a 1.2mm drill on a 2.3mm shaft, although I could feel it struggle a little at 5mm depth. Drilling a bit at a time worked better. Personally I usually drill with a hand chuck, as it's more controlled with wax, so this isn't a feature that would bother me.

If you have a pendant-motor or micro-motor, this probably isn't something for which you'll have much use, but it's handy for anyone on a limited budget or looking for something super-portable. 

Not sure about the name, maybe Pen-motor?

I'll update this when I discover it's lifespan.