Making Spheres

Jewelry Discussion
1

hello:

I started making spheres. The problem is that each half of my
sphere gets a little scratched up in the dabbing block. This
happens when I have too squeeze the half sphere in progress into
a smaller sized hole. How can I prevent this? Cleaning up the
scratches has become really painstaking.

Any suggestions?

DeDe Sullivan
(I’m a new member - or an old member who dropped out over a year ago)

Thanks!!

2

Polish the edges of the holes in the dapping block. Very
slightly rounding off the sharp edge won’t hurt the usefulness of
the block (I do mean VERY slightly), and if that very slight
radius is highly polished, scratching won’t occur as the dapping
tool pulls the metal past that edge into the next smaller hole.

Peter Rowe

3

I radius the top edge of the depression and polish it, or at
least sand it very smooth, to allow the metal to draw down into
the block. You don’t need a sharp edge to get your blank to 180
degrees or more but that edge will mar your metal. You work the
edge of your piece by tilting it and rotating it into the
depression to get the curve of the piece to match the curve of
depression.

DC (I still have a look through the Manhattan Transfer Webcam
now and then to make sure all’s well on 5th Ave.)