Score!

I am so, incredibly, mind-numbingly dumb sometimes. I few posts ago I asked if anyone knew where I could get a scoring tool. Truth is, you can't. The one we were taught to use at uni was made by the technician Brian. However, this isn't why I'm dumb. I'm dumb because the answer has been staring me in the face for months! And almost worst is the answer is held within one of my favourite jewellery books, Tim McCreight's Boxes and Lockets: Metalsmithing Techniques.

Because of the forms I have a tendency to make for my chess set & hollow forms, it's always the first book I turn to if I need help with techniques. However, with the scoring question, I didn't even think to look in it! But there it is, on page 14 "Scraping a Groove" how to make a scraping/scoring tool.

It's a simple process of heating an old file (which I do not have unfortunately), bending the tang at 90°, quenching and then filing & sanding the end into the desired angle, which for my purposes is about 45°. I just need to get some hardened steel and a handle...oh yeah and do a process I haven't done since week one of jewellery and metalsmithing. Not scared about that at all given my temperamental torch and shaky hands.

Tim McCreight's, Boxes and Lockets: Metalsmithing Techniques, is one of the best books I've found, and I really do go back to it time and again. Which is why I stumbled upon this today. I wholeheartedly recommend going out and buying it. It's available from Amazon for about £20.