Tag: cheap studio

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Building A Studio On The Cheap: Cheap Jewelers bench

I mean really cheap. Like $30 cheap. Stay with me now because this is really complicated.

1. Buy cheap flat pack 3 foot high shelf.
2. Mount cheap jewelers bench pin to shelf.
3. Build super simple dust catcher out of some old bike spokes some wood and some garden weed barrier.

Done!

Here are some pictures so you can see it in all its glory.

The dust catcher can be undone to dump the dust out, or to get at stuff under the top shelf. The supports for the dust catcher are made of two old bicycle spokes, and some wood that are held to the bench with twine and rubber bands. The three levels provide ample space for me to set things, and the bench pin is right at eye level if I move my computer desk chair all the way down. The lamp provides spot light when needed.

I have made dozens of projects on this set up and it works very well. Total cost, about $30 for the shelves (from target no less), the garden weed barrier used in the dust catcher was free from a friend, and the spokes came out of an old tire on my bike I had destroyed. The wood was cut off the ends of the magnetic tool holder to make it look nicer and square it up…so really total cost was about $30.

You don’t have to have a fancy bench to make fancy stuff. One day when I start selling my stuff for hundreds of dollars a piece I might go buy a big heavy desk with all the features…but till then this little guy does everything I need.

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Building A Studio On The Cheap: Magnetic Tool Holder

So you don’t have a lot of money, and that $900 jewelers bench with a million awesome features is about $899 out of your budget range, don’t worry you have options.

Lets start with a simple way to organize your tools and keep them at the ready without having them laying all over the place.

1. go to the hardware store and buy a cheap multi tip Torx screw driver. These are the ones that let you open all those strange shaped screws (like hex, star, start with dot, etc). You can get a cheap one that will work just fine for this project. You will most likely only use this thing a couple of times in your whole life so don’t bother with the really fancy ones. You need this because hard drive makers refuse to use normal screws.

2. Go to the junk yard and find where they put the computers waiting to be recycled. Open up as many as you can find and remove the hard drives. They look like this. You will need a normal Philips head screwdriver for this and a bit of patience. Also be aware that some people allow the insides of their computers to get really filthy…you have been warned. It doesn’t matter if the hard drives work, we will be destroying them later.

3. Find a nice spot and spend some quality time removing lots and lots of tiny little screws. Hard drives have a million little screws holding them shut, they also like to hide them under stickers. Open them all up.

4. Find and remove all the magnets from inside them. Each hard drive has one or sometimes two. Be very careful as these are seriously strong magnets. They can jump, and pinch your fingers between two of them easily. Most of them are on little mounting brackets, these will come in handy later. This will also require that you remove lots of little screws and again they like to hide them under stickers. Don’t be afraid of just tearing them out. The instant you exposed that hard drive to air you ruined it…so its kind of pointless to worry about it now.

5. Find a piece of wood. Use a strong glue like gorilla glue or similar to glue the magnets equally spaced on the wood. Once they dry, use a couple wood screws to mount the wood to the wall, and blamo you have a super geeky tool holder. Here is mine in action. The magnets are strong enough to hold a lot of tools on one little pad, and it allows me to keep the tools up off the shelf I use as a bench.

The total cost of this project for me was about $12 the cost of the screw driver tips. If you already have such a screw driver this project is basically free. Any scrap of wood will do, and most people have a wood screw or two laying around (if not see if you can salvage a couple from broken furniture at the dump). I would like to warn again about the amazing power of these magnets, be careful as they can jump towards each other if you get them even a couple inches next to each other. They obviously will also ruin your credit cards etc. They also tend to magnetize your tools slightly, which only matters if you are working with Iron or nickel based metals. This only really comes into play with the files…as the dust wont fall off of them. As almost all of my work is done with copper/brass/bronze/silver this has not been a problem for me.

I really like this little piece in my studio, I use it constantly. Its a simple but easy way to keep all your tools in close reach but out of your hair.

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Building A Studio On The Cheap: General Tips

I have never been confused with someone who has a lot of money. Which can be tough because jewelry and metal smithing is far from an inexpensive hobby. So I am going to post a bit about building a studio without going into debt.

!. Don’t buy things you can get for free.

There is an abundance of free stuff laying around that is perfect for a metal working studio. Old metal pipes can become ring and bracelet mandrels. Scrap metal from the junk yard can become strike plates. People throw away wire that can be stripped and used to make copper chains. Scrap metal found on the ground can be cleaned and used in pieces. There is an abundance of materials that can be used both as tools and as material literally laying around (ride your bike around on trash day and just peek into what people are throwing out, you will be amazed. The local transfer station/dump drop off is also a wealth of material. I am constantly amazed by how much very nice metal is just tossed out.

I also use services like Freecycle, and Craig’s List to pick up things people are giving away for free. You don’t want that crock pot anymore…score! Just got myself a new pickle pot. You have a set of shelves you want to get ride of, can someone say new jewelers bench!

Keep a list of things you need/want in your head and be on the look out for items that will fulfill that list. I have gotten about 50% of the things in my studio from the trash or for free off the internet.

2. Buy the tools you need for each project

You can fall victim the “I might use this some day” temptation to buy every tool you see, but if you are broke you must resist this impulse and buy the tools you need for each project. In this way you can slowly accumulate tools without breaking the bank.

I started off by purchasing one small jewlers kit that came with an assortment of the most commonly used tools (I think it was this one). It got me up and running with a lot of tools that I needed (and a bunch I didn’t, its hard to know what you will use, but almost all of the stuff in that kit gets regular use now). But since then I have tried to only buy tools when I need them.

3. Make your own tools if you can

I needed a tiny mandrel for my dremel tool to hold sand paper. I could have gone online and dropped some cash to have it sent to my house (no local stores didn’t have anything even close to what I needed), but I had some thick bronze wire stock laying around so I carefully sawed a notch down the middle and whalla my own custom made sand paper holder for about 20 cents and a couple minutes of work.

You might be surprised how many things you can make yourself. If that doesn’t work you can often get tools from the hardware store and “modify them.” I bit of work with some files, sand paper, and polish. Suddenly that cheap ball peen hammer from the hardware store now has a mirror finish and works great to apply texture to copper. Sure it wont last forever, but I can always polish it up again when it starts to wear out. That extra elbow grease saves me a lot of cash.

4. Shop around

A couple extra hours spent on Google comparing prices from different websites or calling different local stores can save you a bundle. Metal prices can vary a bunch. Some local stores might have something that is more expensive but has no shipping (heavy stuff + long distance can rack up a lot of shipping costs) which might be a better bargain. It is tempting to just go to Riogrande or similar stores and order everything, but a bit of hunting can get you great deals.

5. Boot strap

Eventually you are probably going to want to start selling your stuff. Either you open an Etsy store, start going to craft fairs, or something else, my advice is start small. Don’t make a thousand of your new earring design. Make 5 see if they sell, if they do use the money to buy more materials and make some more. In this way you can use the sale of your initial work to fund future growth in your shop.

Many people jump in head first spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on stuff only to find out half way through that they are not as interested in this work, or that they want to go a different direction, or that what they thought would be popular isnt. If you use the sales of your work to fund the accusation of more material you can get out at any point without having a lot of debt. I also find this method gives me a little more time to practice and try new ideas because I am always working on little batches of stuff rather than doing the same thing over and over and over.

6. Ask for advice

Go around to local jewelers, art schools, online forums, scrap metal dealers, Google, craft clubs, etc. These people probably know more about where cheap stuff is than you do, and most of them are happy to share that kind of information. You also get an added benefit of being able to make friends, and get someone to bounce your ideas off of while at the same time saving some cash by getting the inside scoop.

I hope these at least give you a general idea of how to slowly (and it will take time) build up your studio with a good supply of tools, materials, and furniture. I am going to post a couple more posts with actual projects (cheap bench, cheap tool holder, etc).