Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Getting Centered

I love tools.
There have been times when I've made flimsy justifications, 
giving myself permission to spend money on a new workbench tool.
I didn't even pretend to hesitate when I saw this nifty tool at a recent bead show.
This wonderful piece of plastic that cost around $8.50 is a center locator.
I can hold any size disc within the V-shaped guides and mark a centerline which is quite useful when I want to cut out inner discs and drill holes for earwires and/or dangles.
I used to operate just fine without my new, super tool,
and would locate my cutouts and drill holes by eye.
Sometimes 'by eye' failed, and I would end up a tad off-balance...
probably something that only I would notice but that would be enough to make me toss the tad off-balance piece into the scrap box.
No toss outs in the batch of discs that I'm working on right now!

A central guide line helped me position the etched brass pieces in my disc cutter.
I used the guide line again to mark the drill hole location with a center punch.
The circles were then set on a solderite board and heat treated with my propane torch.
The small discs that were cut out were added to my container of interesting metal bits,
ready for use in a future project.

Some doming, some sanding and some wire wrapping of amethyst and labradorite...
and new earrings are ready to be delivered later this week.

2 comments:

  1. Who'd have thought a simple piece of plastic could help do all that!

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  2. It's one of my new favorite tools especially since I use so many discs for my earrings.

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