No special tools or know-how needed.
Everything I could find about making lockets required fancy tools or know-how. So, I set out to make one without them. I’m sure it’s been done for hundreds of years though, for me, figuring this out took about 20 hours, a dollar worth of nickels, and half a box of paper clips. It’ll be well worth it if someone else makes one.
Everything I could find about making lockets required fancy tools or know-how. So, I set out to make one without them. I’m sure it’s been done for hundreds of years though, for me, figuring this out took about 20 hours, a dollar worth of nickels, and half a box of paper clips. It’ll be well worth it if someone else makes one.
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Signing UpStep 1: Hammer Out Two Nickels
Use a smooth faced hammer on a smooth surface. I like to start out by placing a smaller ball peen hammer on the coin and using a larger hammer to pound it. This helps keep the coin in place and better directs your blows where you need them. Wear your safety glasses.
Once the detail of the coin begins to disappear, hammer along the edge. Notice that the coin has a tapered edge in the fourth picture. After you taper the entire edge of the coin, go back to the center with hammer on hammer. Do this until the coin is an 1¼” in diameter.
Once the detail of the coin begins to disappear, hammer along the edge. Notice that the coin has a tapered edge in the fourth picture. After you taper the entire edge of the coin, go back to the center with hammer on hammer. Do this until the coin is an 1¼” in diameter.
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Any tips on how to 'easily' alter a photo to be the size of a nickle? My photoshopping days are long past, and I'm curious if there is a simpler method.
Thanks for the great Instructable!
This is staggering! I've got so many ideas from this. thank you for posting!
im nearly done with my necklace and im wondering if theres any way you can make a tutorial to make a latch to this necklace.
thanks
if there is any suggestions i cn get please tell me this is all new to me :D
Thanks for the wonderful tute! I love the heart-shaped one as well - hearts are my favorite! Please make a tutorial for that one as well!
A whole page of Victorian Lockets & Locket Chains: (http://www.morninggloryantiques.com/collectLockets.html)
Some pictures:
The one that started my obsession - from the movie A Little Princess.
Also one from the page above that I particularly like.
How do you exacly this: " Hammer the skirt until it sit’s flush with the side of the socket."
Now, my edge has about an angle of 100 - 110 degrees so it doesn't sit flush with the side of the socket yet.
But whenever I hammer my cap somewhere, a bulge appears somewhere else, so the average angle does not change at all.
(This morning i hammered a cap about 1.5 hours and compared with the other cap and there was no change.)
Somehow the circumference of the upper part of my edge must be reduced but I have no Idea how to do that. I see in these images that it must be possible but how?
Does one have any advice?
Thanks!
I got to the point where I was forming it around the socket and had a similar problem with the bulges, and the first thing I did was hammer it back to flat and then pound it as thin as I could, making sure that the edge was very, very thin.
I got it to the bottle cap stage fairly easily, then spent a LOT of time trimming the skirt, it was much more involved and difficult than I thought it would be. I ended up carefully nipping away at it until it was level with the washers, which tried my patience, but paid off when I was able to hammer it flat in a few minutes. Wood shims in the clamp helped the sockets stay in place.
Mrballeng, thanks so much. Your methods for making jewelry with common workshop items is a revelation to me, and very inspiring.
My only thought is that instead of just one groove in each half you could make two grooves one on either side. You could then take the paper clip you have inside from the hinge and use it also to make a clasp on the other side.
Hope I explained what I was trying to say x.x
abra catambra.......broke!
hahahhahha
Can you define me a price for 1 piece to make it gif to my mother?....plz
really i dont have the time to involve with this and is amazing cheap (as metal) gift with sentimental value...(the really golden one she had is stollen some years ago)
So please me a favor tell me a price if you re available to do something so...and i will pay u through my paypal account.....(seriously)
i made pocket watch using this instructable. thanks!
really great stuff :D
I borrowed all of the equipment for this project, except the round nose pliers. I had a fair amount of difficulty making the hinge with only needle nose pliers. So, I splurged and bought round nose pliers for $4.00. In total, this project cost me $4.10. Way to go Mrballeng for being awesome.
For other readers: I used toothpaste and a leather belt for polishing along with the handheld drill setup provided in the tutorial. I also used very smooth printer paper and that seemed to work as a superfine-grit sandpaper/buffer.
I have a question: For the polish you have a photo of a drill with a polishing bit and liquid compound. I saw that another photo is of just the cloth with the liquid compound. Is one preferable to the other? Also, is there a certain polishing compound that you recommend?
I will post a picture of my completed project before I make a gift of it to my girlfriend.
The polishing wheel with the polishing compound works great. After the wheel you can use a cloth with the compound to add just that much more to the shine. When your done wipe it off with a clean piece of the cloth.
Can't wait to see the pictures.
Aparently I didn't heat it enough to soften it first, that caused the problems in my previous comment. But then I found a small crème brûlée burner and this did the job.
The hinge turned out to be the hardest part in my opinion.
And the polishing was done with toothpaste and chocolate, I didn't get the mirror fishish (still a bit cloudy) but at least it smells nice (and it looks better irl than the image) .
Much thanks for the instructable!
And how do you make all the hammer marks disappear, and get such a nice smooth surface? i keep getting lines from my sandpaper.
Flecks
i'm sure your gf will love this. i'm going to have to try one of these. mothers day is coming up after all.....
dragonfly
I love the way your brain works, and I wish mine worked more like it!
Amazing.
Thanks for posting it.
Thank you for the complement. It's not often I get ot read "McGyver" and "professional" in the same sentence.
note: dental and orthodontic supplies can offer some inexpensive alternatives for molding and interesting abrasives (I love Lightning strips for small hard to reach places)
Im all over this!
If there's a category for 'How Instructibles should be made', enter it!
Those of us in Canada and Britain are out of luck though D:
I found this Instructable to be exceptional. I love the detail you go into and the heavy amount of photos. I've been interested in attempting some simple jewelry for a few years, and I think this may be a good project to cut my teeth with (not to say the locket is simple, or demean your work, but the aesthetic isn't flashy and very clean, which I love).
I'm trying to determine the materials needed, outside of the nickels and paper clips. The socket size looks very straight forward, as well as the cutters, and the sanding/polishing aspect. What hammers would you recommend to use for this project. I like that you re-purpose a hammer as an anvil...roughly what size/weight/material is that? Also, the 2 ball peens? The carriage bolts look pretty straight forward as well.
So my real question is, could you give some further to the scope of the hammers you used. My apologies if it's in the 40 pages of comments and I overlooked them :/
The big one is a sledge hammer which broke off from it's wood handle. I welded it to a metal pipe. I think it's 5 pounds.
The small ball peen is actually a section of a piston rod from a diesel engine. I welded a ball bearing to it and ground it down for the hammer face. Then I just welded that to a piece of 3/8" metal dowel.
Check out this site these should work. Thanks for the comment.
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-piece-fiberglass-handle-ball-pein-hammer-set-39217.html
I appreciate the link and will use that as a guide at the very least.
Keep up the good work.
Does the finish last long?
I am not familiar with your start point: the american coins, would this work with a British coin?
Thanks for posting this bench mark of an instructable.
-Andy.
You should be able to use a 5 pence which I hear is made the same as an American nickel.
I will try and make one for sure!
Do you know any method to give it a gold color?
You can use a sheet of brass to get a gold color. Just cut circles out of the sheet. The brass in the photo is .046"X4"X10" and cost me less then $5.00 at the local hardware store.
The plus side with this is you don't have to hammer anything flat because it already comes in a uniform thickness.
Right now I'm figuring out a heart locket. I'll post it when it looks %100.
If you want to turn base metal gold and make it wearable, get it gold plated. This may not be too costly. OR coat it in gold leaf.
I look for coins with same birth date as the person being gifted and try to leave that part of the nickel intact.
You could ask a neighbor or try making an alcohol stove.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cool-Little-Miniature-Stove!/
I was thinking that, should I find the time to make one myself, that at the "bottom", making some space between where the paper clip ends meet and epoxying two small, weak magnets, to keep it all closed.
Best wishes in your endevours!
A couple of thoughts:
- What keeps the locket closed? It doesn't seem like there's any latch or positive holding mechanism.
- Paper clip wire is notoriously weak and susceptible to fatigue. Would it be better to use small-gauge steel wire?
Thanks again. Great job!
However, I left it out of the instructable because I was afraid people would be less inclined to make it the more complicated it seemed. So for this one, gravity keeps it closed.
My idea behind this locket was that anyone could make one without having to buy special materials. Of course paper clips and nickels are easy to find. But your absolutely right. Higher quality materials can be used to make a better piece.
Very well put together instructions.
I will give this a go.
This method has given me other Ideas for cabinetry and automotive applications.
Great instructable, nice clear photos and lots of them.
Keep on smashing those nickels
You're my instructable-McGuiver hero!!
Have an awesome day!
If that's not possible, try using a hobby sheet of brass, sheet metal, or aluminum. Scroll down and you'll see the brass I'm working with right now.
The ones that are made of Cupronickel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupronickel
which is a copper- nickel alloy 75% copper 25% nickel, are these uniform throughout?
And if you used that would the finished item still look silver or would it turn to look like copper if you beat it about?
And the nickel has 5g of weight, the 5p only has 3.something and the 10p has six point something so that's closer too.
Use a 10p yeah?
You may have some trial and error with which thickness works best but it's not as hard as it may seem.
Hope you post some pictures.
That's a good point how big was your finished locket?
If you decide to give it a try you know where to find me. I'll be happy to help you along with any step you get hung up on.
because of the different sized coins, you said to hammer it out until its 1.25" or bigger in diameter. How thin would it be at that size so i can measure that, as size will vary with the british coins.
I must say though, incredible work. You continuously out-do yourself.
If I remember correctly, I believe that the actual temperature that the nickel is heated to is more important than the speed at which it is cooled. I think this is unique to nickle (or maybe low carbon steels in general). I think hardening comes from the high carbon steel being quenched and the carbon aligning correctly. And a nickle is not a high carbon steel, so it anneals (becomes less brittle and hard).
But it has been a LONG time since I'd read up about this stuff. So I could be mistaken. I'm gonna go google-ize it....
http://www.keytometals.com/Article32.htm
Annealing metal is done by quenching, and hardening it is done by letting it furnace or air cool from a high temperature. Amazing. It is the reverse of steel. I thought that it was a general rule that slow cooling makes it soft and fast cooling makes it hard. In the case of nickel it is the opposite.
Now Mrballeng, are you using nickels which are the current 75% copper 25% nickel or some other composition? In Canada our nickels are now almost all steel, but ones from about 1965 to 1980 or so (can't remember exactly) are 99.9% pure nickel, which works well for these kinds of tasks I think. Our current nickels would not be soft after quenching.
But, It would be awesome to make a silver locket from an American pre-1960's quarter.
Mrballeng, there's a market for this type of work. Every year, for my wife's birthday, I take her to the nearest Zephyr store to buy handmade jewelry. It's not cheap and the majority is made of non-precious or semi-precious metals.
I'm trying my hand at your embossed monster. Once that's done, this is next.
Ferrous metals however need to be allowed to cool slowly.
Any doubt see:
http://cltad.arts.ac.uk/groups/camberwellmateriallibrary/wiki/f347a/Non_Ferrous_metals.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annealing_%28metallurgy%29