Making Jewelry

The production of rhinestone jewelry has nothing to do with the processes of rhinestone decoration of clothing. Jewelry production requires highly specialized skill, tools, knowledge, and materials. For those of you who wish to delve into this area, I strongly suggest calling your nearest University or College and enroll in classes that are aimed at jewelry production. These courses include metal sculpture, casting, wax modeling, lost-wax processes, mountings, etc. This is a very specific field and has nothing in common with clothing embellishment. Please understand that you cannot take rhinestone chain and glue it together to make fine jewelry. This stuff is soldered, and when being used in this manner, cannot be plated before the fact. Gluing flat back rhinestones to ear ring blanks is one thing, but to make a tiara is an entirely different animal. 

For those of you who wish to make bead jewelry, we offer a well-rounded line of Swarovski and Czech beads of differing sizes and shapes, and rhinestone or crystal rondells. Production of fine strands of beads requires knowledge that can be found in numerous books on the subject. Beading requires knotting, special strands of cording or wire, and can produce high-end jewelry. I strongly advise reading and studying the beast before jumping into the arena, for mistakes can be costly. One broken strand of beading can cost you mucho bucks in lost beads.

The incidental articles needed for producing any jewelry fall under the general heading of 'FINDINGS'. This includes chain, mountings, clasps, ear ring posts, jump rings, and articles too numerous to describe here. Full, huge catalogs are filled with the various findings available. WE cannot carry and stock all these items, as we specialize in clothing embellishment. Therefore, we carry NO findings of any kind. 

Every day, I am getting emails asking, "how do I make jewelry?" This is such a huge field that I cannot possibly give you information that is helpful. I can only say that, unless you are willing to make a serious committment in time, study, practice, and education, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! The tools required for producing even small pieces of jewelry include, but are not limited to, soldering torches, stands, ovens for producing molds and lost-wax applications, waxes, sculpture tools, smelting furnaces and pots, wax pots, noble metal(s)..such as gold, platinum, silver, titanium, and a few others. You will need all kinds of hand tools, at least one bench, gold wires, silver wires, platinum wires, gold or silver solder, and, at least, you will also need a plating machine that uses seriously dangerous materials used only in well ventilate or exhaust hood environments. Remember, you cannot solder materials that are already plated without ruining the existing plating...the finished product will have to be replated. Therefore, jewelers usually start out with 'base metal' and plate after everything is mounted. 

I write this article as a reference for emails only. I am not trying to dissuade you from getting into this field, but as a warning that I do not have the knowledge to help you in your endeavor. I handle all point back rhinestones, but not gems.

Thanks, Phil Brandt, rhinestoneguy.com