Jeweler Haiyi Tan walks through 20 years of tool collecting, from his student days in 2003 with basics like a saw frame and kitchen torch, through a phase of buying everything, to now keeping only a few high-quality pieces. He bought a secondhand hammer and screwdriver for $3 last year.
I've been making jewelry since 2003. In my over 2 decades of working with jewelry, I've gone through 3 stages of tool collecting. In this video, I'm going to show you what they are. Stage 1: this is when I was a student back in 2003. At this stage, I own the most basic tools.
Before going to the School of Jewelry in Birmingham, I didn't have any jewelry making experience. All I had was some furniture model making experience when I was at college. I still remember the first day I went to school. I was given a basic tool list. I didn't know what I was doing at the time, so with my very limited budget, I went to a jewelry making tool shop opposite the school. Got my tools one by one without asking a question. That was over 2 decades ago. I still remember what those tools are. If you're interested, let me show you. A pack of number 2 saw blades. These cut through all the precious metals I work with. A jeweler saw frame for holding the saw blades, a rough flat file—this is for quickly removing excess materials—a handheld torch. I was on a very tight budget, so I got a kitchen torch from a local cooking supplier shop. I used this to solder all the small jewelry back those days. Borax cone with a borax dish. A paintbrush for applying the borax paste. A few pairs of pliers for bending materials, a pair of metal shear for cutting solder and wire, a pair of tweezers for holding and picking up the jewelry after and during soldering. A 5x3-inch soldering board. This is for resting the precious metal on when soldering. A few emery sticks with handles. They are for giving some final touches to the surface. Soldering pick. This is to help the solder float. A few drill bits for drilling holes. My most expensive tool when I was a student was a set of Swiss-made needle files. They cost me about $70. Back in 2003. The quality was superb. I used them to do some final adjustments after using the rough flat file. At this stage, all my tools fit in a standard toolbox like this. They sat in my locker at school. Back in those days, With the support from all the tools at my school, I was able to make everything. More than 20 years has passed.
Today I'm still using some of them on a daily basis. Stage 2, that's after setting up my studio. At this time, I have left school. I have to own every single tool I want to use.
Whenever I have made some money from my jewelry, after paying bills and putting some emergency money away, I spent whatever was left in buying tools. Whenever there's a tool sale, I'm in. Also, I was very curious about all the jewelry making tools. I wanted to use them all. During that period of time, whenever I saw a tool, the first thing that jumped into my mind was, how can I use this? What is it for? Sometimes I even make something just for the sake of being able to use the tool. So for about 5 years, I have collected lots of tools. Most of them I use only once. Some of them were even left in the original packing box and have never been in use. Other times, when I was looking for something, I didn't even know I had them. At this stage, I tried to get my hands on every tool I had the chance to collect. No surprise that I ended up with lots of tools that did the same thing. They are just different makes from different countries and with a different price tag. At the end of this stage, I sold a lot of tools.
And most of them are almost brand new. Stage 3, that is now. After trying everything I can, I become a minimalist.
Basically, at this stage, I try to keep as few tools as possible. I want each of my tools to do multiple things. I want every single one of them to be the very best in the range, and they must help me to achieve the best result in the quickest time. More importantly, they last. As I'm making this video, it is almost the end of December. I went through my entire purchasing history of of this year, and I haven't bought a single new tool that I use for jewelry making myself. The only two things I bought this year are this secondhand hammer and a screwdriver with a very short handle from an open market. Together they cost me about $3 in total. I don't want to own too many tools these days.
If you are interested to know what I have in my very small studio, my entire tool list is in the description below. With these few tools, I managed to make everything I show you on my channel. Hopefully this helps, and I will see you in the next video.
This ring took me 3 hours just for the stones #howitsmade #jewelry #craftsmanship
