The Complete Jewelry Making Course: Principles, Practice and Techniques: A Beginner's Course for Aspiring Jewelry Makers: Jinks McGrath: 9780764136603: Books
Rating ( 44 ratings )
10+ user reviews.
Product Details
- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0764136607
- ISBN-13: 978-0764136603
- Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is exactly the kind of book I've come to expect from Jinks McGrath: a thorough, creative, useful, easy-to-navigate, and beautiful text."
--Addie Kidd, Art Jewelry Magazine, March 2009
--Addie Kidd, Art Jewelry Magazine, March 2009
From the Inside Flap
(back cover)
This is a complete course in designing and making jewelry. Carefully structured tutorials guide you through every stage of the process, revealing how to translate inspired ideas into workable, wearable designs. You'll also find professional advice on presenting and selling your work.
Learn about tools, equipment, and safe working practices; build an inspiration file; understand how to select suitable materials and transfer your designs; find out how to work with precious and semi-precious stones, metals, glass, plastic, resin, and wood.
Clear, step-by-step photographs demonstrate all the techniques you'll need, from manipulating materials by heating, hammering, and casting to methods of soldering, riveting, polishing, finishing, and adding surface decoration.
At-a-glance panels explain the effect that different techniques have on a variety of metals, and practical exercises provide guidance in tricky skills--with ideas for tryping them out on inexpensive substitutes before using your chosen materials.
Jinks McGrath is a jeweler and teacher whose designs have been exhibited and collected for many years. She is the author of several previously published books on jewelry making. She lives and works in East Sussex, England.
This is a complete course in designing and making jewelry. Carefully structured tutorials guide you through every stage of the process, revealing how to translate inspired ideas into workable, wearable designs. You'll also find professional advice on presenting and selling your work.
Learn about tools, equipment, and safe working practices; build an inspiration file; understand how to select suitable materials and transfer your designs; find out how to work with precious and semi-precious stones, metals, glass, plastic, resin, and wood.
Clear, step-by-step photographs demonstrate all the techniques you'll need, from manipulating materials by heating, hammering, and casting to methods of soldering, riveting, polishing, finishing, and adding surface decoration.
At-a-glance panels explain the effect that different techniques have on a variety of metals, and practical exercises provide guidance in tricky skills--with ideas for tryping them out on inexpensive substitutes before using your chosen materials.
Jinks McGrath is a jeweler and teacher whose designs have been exhibited and collected for many years. She is the author of several previously published books on jewelry making. She lives and works in East Sussex, England.
The book starts with an overview of tools (types of tools and how to use them, their care and maintenance) and materials (a lot of information about working with various metals and their properties). There are also tips on where to look for design ideas and how to evaluate and translate your ideas into designs you can use.
The next section includes thirty-four units on various facets of jewelry making - annealing, soldering, bending, polishing and finishing, using a draw plate, texturing, and more. Each of these units is broken down into tips and how-tos - with lots of photos to supplement the text. The section on annealing has several tips plus some practice lessons in annealing wire and sheet metal.
The final section of the book has a series of six projects that bring together all of the techniques you've been exploring in some neat designs - a ring, an etched bangle, and a textured pendant for example.
I highly recommend this book - I use it as a ready reference. This is a great reference book for a beginning jewelry maker.
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116 of 127 people found the following review helpful By Althea L. Turner on October 12, 2008
Format: Paperback
3 Comments Sending feedback... I ordered this book with Nicola Hurst's "Step-by-Step Jewelry Workshop" and was very disappointed to find that they were nearly identical.
They used the same photographs and right down to some of the same text.
For example, on page 11 of McGrath a section on Finding Inspiration is exactly the same text as Hurst's pg 21. And there are many more instances of being exactly the same book with different covers.
Neither books are bad, but don't buy them both. In fact, find another less sleazy publisher than Quarto Books to provide your needs.
They used the same photographs and right down to some of the same text.
For example, on page 11 of McGrath a section on Finding Inspiration is exactly the same text as Hurst's pg 21. And there are many more instances of being exactly the same book with different covers.
Neither books are bad, but don't buy them both. In fact, find another less sleazy publisher than Quarto Books to provide your needs.
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49 of 51 people found the following review helpful By Dupree on May 2, 2008
Format: Paperback Amazon Verified Purchase
Comment Sending feedback... This is a relatively good place to start metalsmithing if you have some knowledge of jewelry making. I'm very new using and forming metals, but I have been doing wirework and beading techniques for over five years. At some point beaders often have a desire to move on. This was a good choice for me when that time came. I am well pleased with this book.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful By Laura Dulski on October 7, 2010
Format: Paperback Amazon Verified Purchase
Comment Sending feedback... I have taken a beginning level jewelry making course and find Jinks McGrath's book to be a very useful supplement to classwork. It is particularly good on setting up a studio, identifying needed tools and purchasing or ordering materials. The soldering and bezel-making information interested me most and the book is very thorough in that respect. Other areas very well-covered are design and the related topic of measuring to achieve design aspirations. Finally, the work pictured throughout is lovely and inspiring, with nothing tacky or tasteless included. I like this manual very much and feel that it delivers exactly what the title promises.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful By E. Jeffrey on February 26, 2012
Format: Paperback Amazon Verified Purchase
Comment Sending feedback... I gave this book three stars for one reason. It has good pictures. It is not, however, in depth, or in anyway "complete" with regards to step by step instructions for each technique discussed. It is more a severely abridged version of how-to instructions. I am currently taking a jewelry-making/metal-working class and I bought this book and The Work Bench Guide to Jewelry Techniques by Anastasia Young (which is much more thorough) for supplemental reading as I went through the class and half-way through it, I quit reading it and now just look at the pictures for inspiration. It does have good resources cited and the information about types of metal and jewels and how they are graded, measured, and priced is adequate. But if you want a step by step how-to book, this is NOT it. My notes from class are more complete. And frankly, metal is too expensive to be guessing your way through.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful By Anya Z on November 22, 2008
Format: Paperback
Comment Sending feedback... this book will work for anyone wanting an overall concise introduction to the art of jewelry making. personally,
it was not the book i was looking for - i tend to balk at anything too technical. i do have a friend, however,
who took the book right out of my hands and is loving it. if you are of the nature to do things in an orderly and precise fashion, you will get a lot out of this book: clear direction and helpful illustrations of all techniques.
it was not the book i was looking for - i tend to balk at anything too technical. i do have a friend, however,
who took the book right out of my hands and is loving it. if you are of the nature to do things in an orderly and precise fashion, you will get a lot out of this book: clear direction and helpful illustrations of all techniques.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful By Kandie Berridge on May 21, 2008
Format: Paperback
2 Comments Sending feedback... Maybe I already own too many jewelry instruction books but this is my least favorite. There are only a few projects in the back and I don't really find them all that inspiring. I do think the bezel setting section was very thorough - maybe more so than other books I have.
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41 of 53 people found the following review helpful By judyevelyn on November 20, 2007
Format: Paperback Amazon Verified Purchase
Comment Sending feedback... Very worthwhile for serious artist beginning mtalwork. This is not for a "beader" type of hobbyist. Lovely book, well represented, well laid out, instructions clear, pictures good.
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