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Fascinated by the idea of making my own bracelets, pins and necklaces, I'd sat in with children in a metal shop conducted in their school, near our home in Danboro, Pennsylvania, in a course designed to teach simple jewelry making. And I wasn't sorry!

I'd attained a fair degree of skill in making the metal ornaments for myself and as presents for friends, so, deciding to attempt the matter on a small commercial scale, I added to my meagre store of tools a gas torch for soldering. Then came several jewelers' or piercing saws, a pair of side-cutting and a pair of needle-nose pliers.

Added also were round nose pincers, tin snips, a small vise, an assortment of small files and hammers and two electric soldering irons, one a 40-watt affair, the other a big 200-watter.

SINCE WIDE coppered bracelets are a prime favorite with women, I started by making a few assorted designs for display. They are very simple to make in the following fashion.

In books on metal work, are pictures of finished ornaments, from which it is possible to get ideas, and make a drawing from them. Sketches may be made of items in jewelers' windows, or a hasty drawing made from some fancied article seen worn by someone. Some sketches may be original, evolved from observation of leaves, flowers, insects and curios in the local art and gift shops.

Having decided upon the kind of bracelet that I'm going to fashion, I draw my sketch on flimsy tracing paper; then this is glued with household cement onto the metal from which the piece is to be made. Following the outside lines, the metal is cut away with the tin shears, as in Figure 1. A pair of straight shears, twelve inches long, is most satisfactory.

Inside pieces of metal are removed by piercing, in which a small hole is drilled with a hand drill, another indispensable tool, right inside the figure that is to be on the bracelet. A jeweler's saw is dismantled and the blade poked through the hole. Then the saw is re-assembled and the cuts made by clamping the metal down on the V-shaped wood block (Figure 2).

This V-block on which the metal is held flat while sawed, is a three-by-six-inch piece of wood, a half-inch thick, with a V-shaped wedge cut out of it. I fasten it to my worktable with a small "C" clamp, the "V" slot facing me. Insert the blade in the saw frame so its teeth point down towards the handle. A No. 2 blade, with thirty-two teeth to the inch, is best. Hold it perpendicular to the metal from which the bracelet is being fashioned. Cut all around the paper design, taking care not to stretch the sketched figure out of shape. Wash the remains of the design off with hot water.

Bend the metal or hammer it into the desired shape over wood or metal forms held firmly in a vise (Figure 3).

Hand pressure should be used whenever possible and as a rule, is usually sufficient with the light gauges of metal used. A mallet or hammer is needed when dealing with heavier stock. Hardwoods, planed and sanded to shape and pieces of discarded pipe all serve as bending stakes.

File smooth any rough edges and finish by rubbing with No. 0000 dry steel wool. By rubbing a little harder at various points, high spots on the bracelet may be accentuated. Wipe off all particles of dust and metal and apply a coat of clear lacquer or fingernail polish to preserve the attractive finish.

Where small parts are to be mounted on the bracelet (Figure 4), or where the top of a pin is to sport a bowknot or wire spiral, such assemblies are cut out separately.

The wire spirals in Figure 4 have been wound from bare No. 14 electric light copper wire, the kind used to wire homes. Use the roundnose pliers to bend the wire around.

If a bowknot or other assembled figure is to be mounted on top the bracelet or to form a pin, the small pieces are clamped to the main piece with cotter pins or bobby pins. In this position they are soldered on, then polished and lacquered. In some instances copper rivets are used instead of solder.

Thus, from copper and silver can be made an infinite variety of arm ornaments.

A departure from a smooth-surfaced bracelet is to lay the piece of metal flat on a steel block and beat it lightly with the rounded head of a machinist's hammer (Figure 4). This is called peening, and results in a pleasing effect, even if no other top ornamentation is used.

BRACELETS OF copper and silver are easy to make, despite the seeming complexity. But whatever the metal used, it is easier to work if it first be made soft and pliable. For this reason, it is "annealed," or heated until it is red hot.

Plunged quickly into cold water, it becomes ready for working into the desired form. The gas torch is the best tool for this heating rite. Using a blue flame, move it slowly over the surface of the metal piece, supported on a brick or piece of thick asbestos shingle, or it can be packed with sand. Play the flame evenly, avoiding spotty heating.

A word of caution about sawing metal parts. The saw should be kept a hairsbreadth away from the designed lines, to allow for finishing to the exact size.

Although these small saws are made in various lengths, a five-inch one is best; the blades come in bundles of a dozen and by the gross. Since the beginner is apt to find the blades very delicate and easily broken, it is wiser to purchase them in the larger quantity, even if one is only half-hearted about this exhilarating and profitable hobby. I have found blade prices to vary from 75 cents a dozen, when bought that way, to 21 cents a dozen in gross lots!

And when working with the tiny parts that often go into the assembly of a fanciful pin, a jeweler's eye loupe is a very handy and inexpensive accessory. For those who wear glasses, these little magnifiers are available mounted on the end of a spring that fits right over one lens. This helper costs about $1.25 and simplifies intricate assembly and soldering.

In making duplicate pieces, I solved the problem of matching them closely by shaping out a block of wood into the desired shape. With this as a guide, many pieces of uniform contour could turned out far quicker and each would pattern the other closely.

SINCE SOLDERING was my chief bug-a-boo, I studied up on it; there are many fine books on the subject. Almost any book on metalcraft devotes some space to this important phase of this sort of hobbycraft. The book, "Hand Made Jewelry," by Louis Wilner (Van Nostrand), contains valuable information on soldering. But practice is essential, using the accepted techniques.

It makes a difference what kind of metals are in use, because each requires its own particular kind of soldering flux, the essential ingredient for proper union. And either "soft" or "hard" solders are available.

For example, with copper, "soft" soldering is the practice generally followed. This requires only a low degree of heat as compared with the "hard" soldering of silver in which the metal is brought to a red heat and the joints are thus made ever so much stronger.

"Soft" solder work is done with wire or bar solder known to the trade as fifty-fifty (half lead and half tin), and a flux in paste or liquid form of soldering salts of zinc chloride composition. Either of these come already prepared for use.

Basically, soldering begins with the metal surfaces to be joined being made clean and bright with any abrasive like sandpaper, emery cloth or steel wool. The soldering acid is applied sparingly, the parts are held in place with wire, clamps, cotter pins or bobby pills, as stated elsewhere. Heat is now applied with either the gas torch or the electric soldering iron, and the solder applied in tiny doses. It does no good to feed solder in large amounts.

In soldering on tiny objects, clean the metals that are to be united, and apply the soldering acid. Then beat pieces of solder flat and thin, lay slivers of it between the parts, fasten the assembled parts as stated and apply heat. The solder will run around and fasten the pieces together firmly. Excess and unwanted solder may be removed with a knife, a small file or with an abrasive.

Soldering of silver requires "hard" solder, obtainable in sheets which are cut up to the size required for the work.

After the soldering, filing and smoothing are completed, the parts are "pickled" to remove scale formed during the annealing process. Six ounces of commercial sulphuric acid are added to a gallon of cold water and stirred with a wood stick. (Never add water to the acid first, and don't use boiling water!)

Immerse the metal in this bath for a few minutes, remove, rinse in running water and dry with a clean cloth.

THERE ARE many ways to color the finished ornaments. Scratches and blemishes may be removed with pumice stone or powder, after the abrasives mentioned have been employed.

Right now a popular color is oxidized copper. For this finish I immerse the pickled copper in a bath of liver of sulphur mixed in hot water to a pale, yellowish color. For small pieces like wrist ornaments and small medallions, dissolve a piece of sulphur the size of a pea in two to three ounces of fairly warm water, in a glass or saucer. Warm the piece of jewelry in warm water, then either immerse it in the sulphur solution or brush it on with several brushings until it assumes the desired darkness. Wash it well in warm water. Then polish it with steel wool to achieve lustrous highlights. Brush with a coat of clear lacquer to protect the finish.

It is advisable never to oxidize too dark or the color will scale and fall off.

Large pieces of metal need to be warmed in water, a larger piece of the sulphur is dissolved in a greater quantity of water to form the solution, and the piece is removed from the water, the sulphur brushed on and the process of rinsing and polishing is as before.

The amount of sulphur used isn't too important. The only point to watch is not to use so many brushings that the color is too dark and thus in danger of scaling.

In place of clear lacquer, a good wax will also preserve the final finish.

A "relief" effect may be obtained on bracelets by laying the metal on an old piece of lead pipe flattened to a dimension of three by six inches and mounted on a wood block slightly larger. A round-nosed steel punch is directed at the embryo ornament and a hammer beats a gentle tattoo on it as the punch is moved over the surface. This process of "raising" metal is called "dapping," and produces very lovely work.

SINCE NECKLACES and wire bracelets are much in demand, I started making them out of No. 18 copper wire. They didn't seem attractive in their copper state, so I contacted a firm which silverplates them at a very nominal price; by accumulating a pile of pieces for plating, I get a much lower figure than by sending in individual pieces and this plating really produces a professional piece of jewelry!

These necklaces are easily made by first making up a series of links (Figure 5) equal to the desired length, each link being formed from a piece of wire six inches long. Using the long-nosed pliers, make the concentric circles in each end as shown, bend a loop in the center of the wire, and link together.

No. 18 copper wire, (ordinary bell wire) is shown in Figure 6, formed into one spiral, a loop, after which the opposite spiral is shaped.

Figure 7 shows one complete link for a necklace.

A differently pleasing effect is obtained if two links are made of six-inch lengths of wire, then the next two links slightly smaller to make up a sort of progressive dwindling in link size until the links end at the piece of metal on which has been hammered out a design or the person's initials.

Figure 8 shows these diminishing links. Made up to the desired length, such a bracelet is cleaned and polished and lacquered, or packed off to be silverplated. The medallion or piece which carries the initials or design I generally make out of a piece of silver, if I'm going to silverplate the necklace.

SILVER, SIZE twenty gauge, costs about $7 for a sheet six by six inches, silver solder 40 cents a quarter ounce and the special flux about 35 cents for a two-ounce bottle, although I soon learned how to make the flux up in quantity very inexpensively. While the price of silver may seem high, it isn't when it is considered how many objects may be made out of a single sheet. And all the scraps are used, perhaps to decorate a piece made of another and cheaper metal.

Copper, in twenty-gauge is obtainable in sheets, costs about 61 cents a pound (and what a flock of articles can be fashioned from a pound!) while bell wire is obtainable at a nominal price in any hardware or electrical store.

It should be borne in mind that metal prices fluctuate sharply and uncertainly from time to time. And the amount purchased may vary the price as much as 20 to 35 percent, for the sources of supply naturally give the lowest prices to quantity buyers. I've learned to estimate my monthly needs and buy in stocks sufficient to insure myself the lowest figure.

Copper, aluminum and stainless steel may be purchased in odd sizes and shapes, as scrap, at a substantial discount from prices of regular stock. And even during periods of shortages such quantities as are needed to make a fair week's pay seem always available. By scouting around earnestly among large fabricators who use these materials, it is generally possible to make connections. In a pinch I've used old copper water pipe for my creations, and after silverplating, no one would have ever suspected their plebian origin!

And it is often possible to haunt plumbing and junk shops for the necessary materials.

HESITANTLY I launched my enterprise by giving a few samples of my handiwork away as gifts, and by wearing them to the village strawberry festivals, covered-dish suppers and local community meetings. But our area is the center of famed Bucks County, mecca of the artists and literary people from New York who maintain summer places here, and the section just crawls with antique "shoppers."

So I solicited one such shop owner and made a deal to give him my work on a consignment basis. He sells my creations from $1.50 up for the bracelets, to $3.50 up for the necklaces. This nets me about forty percent profit. And I'm permitted to sell from home to the trade I get from advertising in the village paper—providing I charge the same for an article at home, that the shop owner gets for it in his store.

He closes rather early in the day, while customers can come to my home at odd hours and there be beguiled by a much larger selection of jewelry.

I've been averaging from $30 to $70 weekly, this depending not on the prices I get, but mainly on how I feel physically from week to week and the hours I'm able to put in at my full-time hobby. When I don't feel equal to it, I quit, and this sometimes irks my antique storekeeper, but I just can't help it.

The field for low-priced jewelry is wide open and has become a solid part of the average jewelry store's business and appears destined to stay that way indefinitely.

My entire equipment of tools didn't cost me over $40; comes the glorious day I regain my health, I'm going to buy power machines, wean my husband away from his job, and go into this "fascinating work in a store all our own—with the profits all our own too.