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Today, I got happy! I decided to head out and start buying the tools I need to get silversmithing!

I started my journey at Peppertown Gemworld. My first reaction when walking in there for the first time today was ‘whoa!!’. And then ‘why have I not come here before?!’. Seriously, if you like making jewellery – especially beaded jewellery, this place is where you will go when you die. I have NEVER seen anything like it! Not only did it have the largest selection of beads I have ever seen, a good 10 times over (no, I am not exaggerating!), but it also has a whole section devoted to glassmaking and silversmithing and lapidary… you can browse the tumblers, buy raw gemstones… and the list goes on. The place is honestly a huge warehouse!

My first and only stop today was the smithing counter. I gave all of the beads a wide berth – otherwise I was afraid I may have got lost in a shiny bead time vortex and woken up dazed some time on Sunday.

So, at the smithing counter I bought the following tools (okay – take a deep breath people!).

1. A bench clamp for sawing
2. A jewellers saw and blades
3. A new pair of half-round pliers
4. A polishing cloth
5. Pickle
6. Flux
7. A cute little handheld blowtorch (who’d have thunk a blowtorch
could be this cute!)
8. A ceramic tile to work on with blowtorch
9. Two polishing compounds – one for cutting away imperfections
(Tripoli), the other for polishing.
10. 2 polishing wheels and two ring polishing mandrels – one for each
compound (you cannot mix them!)

Then, I visited two metal supplies shops in the city (Peppertown don’t sell metal). The second one, House of Jewellery, was just what I was looking for! I bought myself a strip of metal to make rings out of; some sheet silver (my god is it expensive!!!); and a few more metres of silver wire, since I was there 🙂 I also scored myself some awesome black paper bags for the market in July (my first market!!! But more on that in a later post…).

However, *slap to head* in both places I forgot to buy solder!!! How stupid of me 🙂 Oh well, I’ll just have to hope Bunnings has some tomorrow when I visit – and if not, I’ll go back to Peppertown and hope they do!

Still to buy:

-A steel ring mandrel (forgot to get that, too – Peppertown had them)
-A bench grinder and correct attachments
-A large file set
-Sandpaper
-Rawhide mallet

Off to Bunnings tomorrow!!