David Johnston Oooo. A drift punch would work Great! Thanks for the idea.

Wow, that's a very good idea! 👍 I recently read a book about stamping and making stamps so I googled how to make them from nails and it brought me here but then I read your comment about masonry nails. I knew exactly the kind you were referring to so thanks for that! It's another addition to deposit to my bank of ideas! 👍😀

Thank you!

Great advice, thank you!!

Lifting on the backstroke is a myth created by woodworkers because it leaves undesirable marks in the finish. More damage would be done to the file every time you drop it back onto the work. Also keeping the file on the work results a better angle consistency and helps to remove chips from the teeth. Just only apply pressure on the forward stroke.

This is now proven false, check out fireball tools who did a great test to show the results.

Masonry nails are hard, but they don't seem to have enough carbon in them to get glass hard. I like using the cut masonry nails over the fluted ones because the cross section gives you more shape options, they're more comfortable to hold and it's easier to keep a rectangle indexed than it is a round nail

+huskyfluffy Hi there, thanks for your question. Masonry nails are made from hardened steel. Steel is an iron based alloy that contains carbon. Unlike nonferrous metals, when the heated metal is quenched in cold water, it rearranges its crystal structure and becomes extremely hard. 1. heat and let it cool down slowly -> softens 2. curve 3. heat and quench in cold water -> hardens I hope this helps. Judit M.

+huskyfluffy annealing is to make the metal soft when you anneal you need to leave it to cool verry slow sometimes covering it in some warm dry sand works great as for hardening it depends what metal you are useing as some steels need to be quenched in water and some need to be quenched in oil water hardening steel tends to crack in the procces so best to know your steel and use oil if you want a real hard tool i think hardening with just a plumbers tourch wont get you the magic temp when the steel is at critical quenching temp it becomes non magnetic so to have a little magnet standing by while heating it up would be a must as soon as the magnet dont stick then quench it right away and move it around in the water/oil as you quench to keep the water from boiling around the nail/chistle/stamp also to temper after you harden is a good idea because sometimes you can harden a chistle/punch so on and you hit it once and then end will just brake off if its to hard if you harden it and then temper it this will relax the metal a little and give it some movement. some good things to keep in mind maybe this saves you making some mistakes =]

+Ashley Smith Great comment, thanks Ashley.

+Judit Mátyus This only works with medium/high carbon steel (between 0.6 and 1.2, works best with 0.76, but between 0.9 and 1.0 is okay) The reason for that is that the carbon content of the steel permits to harden it. Ferrite or Cementite is converted to Austenite when heated approximately above 800 °C (1500°F approx.). If allowed to cool slowly, the Austenite content turns back into what it was before, but if quenched, it converts into Martensite, which is what you look for when hardening steel. If the carbon content is too low, you will have to heat far more to get the steel a little harder, and if it's way too low, you wont even notice any difference. An alternative, when you don't have access to high carbon steel, would be case-hardening, which can be done by heating your steel above 800°C for 4 hours in a closed container, alongside with any high-carbon-bearing content (Sugar works fine, wood chips, hardwood charcoal powder, shells, etc...) Then the outer part of the steel (you need to give it its final form before doing that) will have more carbon content and you will be able to harden it. If you cannot heat it for 4 hours, then you could just quench it in sugar when red hot and repeat a dozen of times to get a small (

+Pierre Lefebvre (Just found out that masonry nails claim to be made from high-carbon steel. It's not really true, i could not find what type of steel is used to make those nails, but i'm pretty sure it's medium-carbon steel. Anyways, it's better than using regular nails. Gonna make a few of them to see how long it lasts =) )

+Ashley Smith I haven't broke one so far.. I would think alan keys have a higher carbon content. Masonry nails are pretty cheep, you may want to try :)

+Judit Mátyus hey =] thats good to know that you aint broke one alan keys are real hard steel yeah i tryed it with a few diffrent nails today and i use my forge to heat treat them two of them broke but that was with carpentry nails i tryed masonry and thay do take to hardening well i tryed 3 in water and 3 in oil and i found it was much better useing the engin oil with the water i found it didunt harden it as much as i would need as i would use these for adding detail to knifes and so on keyrings or something like that so i would want to use them on hot metal and cold but yeah the masonry nails quenched in oil i heated it just under critical temp so its still slightly magnetic and it had taken a nice hardness =] really appreciate your reply thank you so much judit loveing your vids mate so much nice stuff you have there =]

ooh Alan Keys I have tons of them too...thank you too xx

Ashley Smith the stamp is "glass hard" unless you draw the temper in an ordinary oven, at around 460 degrees to draw some of the hardness. You can check the carbon content of masonry nails and look up tempering of impact type tools. I only mentioned this having had a punch chip and imbed in a bone in my hand, thus learned the hard way. Best regards

hey man thanx means alot to me knolage is preciouce i will read into what you say and learn more than what i already know thank you for the base. kind regards =]

Yes, you can. I used the same file. It won't contaminate silver.

Hi Nancy, you find that product on amazon: amzn.to/2iXU9wF or amzn.to/2jiQUwt I think this is what you are looking for. I hope I was able to help you.

Yes thank you so much. Just purchased one. Can't wait to make some stamps. Thank you again. :)

nancy beal-houle I love her keyhole “work bench attachment”. WANT!!!

nancy beal-houle I realise you got one but I saw a video of someone making a 'lazy susan' device by using a bowl with marbles in it underneath the one holding the tools. ...it worked pretty well too. It is probably still under DIY lazy susan (could have been the Online Jewellery Academy who have great tips for making your own tools...its so expensive so I try to make my own when I can.

mightygoodmagic Swiss made Grobet Vallorbe #0 and #2

Thanks so much Judit! Are the red handled ones from Grobet as well?

mightygoodmagic no, those are some other brand. 🤔stick with the Swiss or German files. Those are good ones. --> www.riogrande.com

I make jewellery in india

That's a really cool idea!!!

Fire Mountain Gems should have them on-line if you live somewhere that is too small to have any hobby/craft stores....

+Manuel Gonzalez Thanks for your feedback.

I can see everything what is necessary. Did you open your eyes? :-)

Yes, the camera should be where the light is coming from.

Hans de Groot Apparently, you have supernatural vision. It was way too dark and/or blurry to see the fine details. There’s nothing wrong with people leaving constructive feedback on tutorials, by the way.

no your English is fine I can understand you (may need a little polish but so does mine...I'm Scottish) thanks for your input into the comments and I believe that the red you have to achieve is a dull (dark) red as opposed to bright orangey red.

Zane Maingot Same. I can’t see anything. Goes to show how much more work it would be to do a step by step process and show each result close up. Even though it’s more effort, it would go a long way in helping the viewers to actually see what’s going on.