Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Texturing hammers

I have coveted a rolling mill for years. I love the textural possibilities it brings to metal, so every time I see the results another artist gets with their rolling mill, I shop around online to compare prices. But I always ultimately decide that I don't want to buy something in the moment that is super cheap (still $250!) and later wish I had waited until I could afford something better.   

I got a catalog in the mail from Kingsley North a few weeks ago.  I generally groan when I get those giant volumes.  They just take up space and since Lowell is a recycling ninja who also believes that everyone is trying to steal our identities, it means that I have to flip through the catalog and make sure that all identifying information is out of there before dumping it in the bin.  Once (one time!), I missed that center form where the company has pre-filled your address information and Lowell simply pulled it out and dangled it in a floppy hand off his hip, wearing a look that said I was totally, hopelessly irresponsible. So I don't want to relive that.  Besides, I prefer to buy jewelry making supplies online...it's just easier.

So when this catalog showed up, I wasn't too thrilled.  Also, I had never heard of the company before, so I was a little bit suspicious.  But I noticed something about new texturing hammers on the front of the catalog and had to at least take a look.  I have seen hammers like this from other companies, but they had changeable hammer faces and my experience with that sort of thing has not been great.  KN had three kinds with different texturing elements on each side of the hammer head--bubbles, lines, squares. They looked promising and really didn't cost much, so I went against my intuition and ordered the hammers.  

And they are glorious. 

Side one:

Side two:



Bottom line, I love them.  I still have clean-up to do on these pieces, but here are my results from the first run:







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