Cut out shapes

Jewelry Discussion
1

I have been making earrings with cut out shapes which I saw out. Can
anyone recommend a faster way To do this. I can’t afford a Bonnie
doon hydraulic press and wondered about die cutting shapes. Any
suggestions are welcome.

2

Interior cuts are a problem I have been working on for a while. I
have started to collect stock punch and die sets for a Roper Whitney
lever press I bought off EBay. These come in rectangles, rounds,
ovals and squares. With this type of tooling I can utilize American
labor to produce for me at a price I can afford. Repeatable,
consistent and predictable cuts are what punch and die sets do all
day long. Switching the punch and dies takes about 15 minutes so
doing a run of pieces is more cost effective. My pancake dies ( all
custom designs) will do the outside cuts and I use my Bonny Doon for
that as well as lots of Bonny Doon forming tools. I even bought the
Bonny Doon die shoe to hold dies I have from my grandfather but they
are all larger shapes than I would utilize for an interior cut. My
Bonny Doon is indispensable for small scale production and I have
built many designs around it’s tooling.

Custom punch and dies are expensive and I prefer the generic shapes
available, used, off EBay which I use to do all kinds of designs and
experiments. This allows me to have the capability of production
with out committing to a custom design which may or may not sell. Far
from being an artistic limit, the simple shapes push me to take them
to their limit. Currently I have pieces I have made with the Roper
Whitney that have me in an artistic dither as to what I am going to
do with them. My imagination is being fired by these tools which I
did not expect due to their seeming simplicity. Search Roper Whitney
on EBay. They are an old American tool manufacture, real mid west red
bloods, back bone of this country ( years ago) which is still in
business and will make dies for you and have been very helpful to me
during my tooling phase.

Sam Patania, Tucson

3

You can have a pancake die made and use a decent sized vice to punch
the pancake die shape.

4

You can easily make your own pancake punch/dies with the RT Blanking
System. See… etsy metal: Creating a cutting stamp using the RT Blanking System.

Regards, Gary Wooding

5

If you need a custom shape, look at Dar Shelton’s web site.

He can make wonderful custom dies and he used to at least run a
service where he keeps the dies, cuts out shapes, and sends them to
you as ordered.

Kevin Potter also makes standard shapes in dies. His require 20g or
thicker metal, so it depends on what you are trying to do.

JB Whitney has a die/punch sets which will do several kinds of sizes
and standard shapes ;you can get the or like sets off Amazon, eBay
or other googled sites.

6

Cathy,

I have been making earrings with cut out shapes which I saw out.
Can anyone recommend a faster way To do this.

I’d highly recommend that you look at Laura Brito’s website,

for metal shapes (copper, brass, silver, bronze, etc). If you don’t
see what you want, email her for a custom quote. Laura runs a
non-profit teaching workshop in Mexico where she is lifting young
women from poverty by teaching them jewelry making skills. Check it
out.

Jamie