What Goes into Making Metal Handmade Men’s Bracelets?
Jewelry for men has been around just as long as women’s jewelry. Kings and princes have adorned neckpieces and bold bracelets in the past. Today, men who wear jewelry are considered fashionable, tasteful and expressive in the way they dress. The level of detail and quality that goes into creating these fashion centerpieces for men’s wrists is quite impressive. Metal bracelets in particular are an elegant and impressive addition to any kind of look, whether going for a formal corporate meeting or enjoying a relaxed night out with a significant other.
There are various process involved in creating the masterpieces that are handmade men’s bracelets. It takes a lot of skill and creativity to come up with the different intricate designs for these bracelets.
Annealing
For the artisan to be able to curve and bend the metal into various designs, they need to soften the hard metal. This process of softening hard metal is referred to as annealing. The hard metal is heated in the flame of a torch to make it easier to work with. To keep the metal malleable, annealing may be done repeatedly throughout the designing process since the metal will harden as it is hammered and bent and as it cools too.
Cutting and drilling
Depending on the needs of the design, some cutting, drilling or sawing may be necessary to form desired shapes, groves and surface textures for the jewelry. The process demands a lot of attention especially when working on very intricate designs. The metal smith can use tools like tin snips, cutting pliers, and drilling attachments on flex shafts, metal punchers and a jeweler’s saw among other tools.
Filing and sanding
When you cut metal using a saw, the edges are usually frayed or left with dangerous burs. To give the jewelry smooth edges that are comfortable to wear on the skin, the craft smith uses metal files or steel wool to remove these sharp and burred edges. Filling and sanding may be necessary in more than one-step throughout the process just like annealing, especially when creating perfectly snug seams for welding. Paying close attention to cutting, drilling and filing makes for some of the best handmade men’s bracelets in the market today.
Forming the metal
Forming metal can include anything from turning flat sheets of metal into three-dimensional shapes, folding the metal, doming, raising or fluting the metal to form desired shapes. A lot of skill and creativity is also necessary in these forming processes to come up with impressive jewelry pieces. The artisan has to constantly hammer and work the metal repeatedly on a hard surface like and anvil, mandrel or dapping blocks to form the jewelry.
Joining the metal pieces
Once the individual pieces are formed, they can be joined to create the actual bracelets. They are joined using techniques such as weaving and riveting or connected using soldering and fusing. Soldering usually creates a more permanent joint between two pieces of jewelry compared to the other joining methods.
Finishing
The metal finishing is the crowning step on the ultimate appearance and quality of handmade men’s bracelets. Finishing includes sanding, filling and buffing for that smooth, attractive comfortable and shiny finish to the bracelets that will make you want to buy it off the shelf. Sometimes finishing techniques may be characteristic of the particular artist who created the piece of jewelry.
Handmade men’s bracelets often stand out due to the visibly intricate process that goes into their creation. Furthermore, the artist can choose to embellish the jewelry using precious stones, adding textures and patinas, engraving or etching the jewelry and many other additions to make the pieces unique, stylish and valuable.