The Complete Jewelry Making Course: Principles, Practice and Techniques: A Beginner's Course for Aspiring Jewelry Makers

by Jinks McGrath

This comprehensive and heavily illustrated manual teaches the craft of jewelry making to students looking to create professional quality items. The author covers every step of the process, from creating original design concepts to fashioning professionally finished pieces of jewelry. She lists all required tools and equipment, explains their uses, advises on safe working practices, and then guides her readers through every stage of the jewelry making process in a series of carefully structured tutorials. Students will learn--

How to start with an original idea, translate it into a workable design, and then use the design as a pattern to make beautiful wearable jewelry How to work with precious and semiprecious stones, metals, glass, plastic, resin, and wood How to present and sell one's creations to dealers and wholesalers

Clear, full-color, step-by-step photos demonstrate the methods of fashioning metals by heating, hammering, casting, soldering, riveting, polishing, finishing, and adding surface decoration. At-a-glance panels explain how to apply the right techniques when working in specific metals, as well as ideas for experimenting with inexpensive substitutes before advancing to precious materials. Here's the perfect book for transforming hobbyists into true professionals. It will also serve as a useful textbook for those conducting organized courses in jewelry design. Color photos on every page.

Genres: Jewellery, Nonfiction, Jewellery Making, Art, Crafts, Reference

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

Reviews

[Mario Hiter · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book doesn't contain all of the techniques contained in The Complete Metalsmith book it covers basic techniques such as soldering, cutting, and various metalworking techniques in great depth. It also contains a lot of photographs of contemporary jewelry that students could get ideas from. It is included in this textbook set as another reference and a different point of view on metalworking techniques.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is much like the Complete Metalsmith Guild but not as in depth. It has step by step guilds and photos for the same techniques as the Guild. I chose to include it because it has a couple of additional sections. This book looks at incorporating not just stones, but how to incorporate wood, plastics, and resins into your jewelry work. It also discusses how to take a idea and translate it in to a piece, something many people have problems with.

[Ligaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of jewelry-making, mostly metalworking, techniques. The author covers tools and materials and then devotes the rest of book into short chapters that briefly explain a single technique or process in fabricating jewelry. Lots of photographs showing things step-by-step as well as examples of contemporary jewelry. Not a lot of depth here but a good place to start.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book on the subject, lots of color photos and covers all the basic tools.

[Beth White]

A little too complicated for me