Hello my friends! This post is specifically for those jewelers out there- especially beginners- who have trouble/hate sawing. I don’t know if you could call it a tip, but let’s call it a tip. I’ve always hated to saw. I’m not very good at it, and I probably own literally every saw out there. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but I own a lot of saws because every time I read about one, I’m like, Oh, that will magically change my sawing ability for the better. And then I’m always sadly disappointed. 😛 But this time instead of buying a new saw, I bought a new bench pin. I can’t even tell you why, except that someone in some board somewhere mentioned it helped their sawing. So I bit.
The bench pin I was currently using, is a white plastic material- very hard. It’s attached into a bench pin holder that can be used with a GRS mounting plate. There are million of videos and write ups on the GRS system, but basically it allows you to take things on and off very easily.
So I had the bench pin, and I liked it ok. It was… it was a bench pin. It holds your metal as you saw. You could drill into it. It was nice and white until I brought Sharpie marker over the top of it, haha. But I never really absolutely loved it. The pin was really, really, really thick, so when I was trying to hold metal down, my hand would hurt. I have arthritis in my thumb from years of computer work, and my pincher grip is shot. When I saw the Knew Concepts bench pin it was much thinner and it’s made out of steel so it looked like it would be a little bit stiffer. My current bench pin one also moved around a little bit, even
with trying to screw it in tight and I wasn’t crazy about that. So I was thinking the Knew Concepts would be stiffer and I would like it better. Boy Howdy, I was right. I mean, I love this thing! With this new bench pen, I definitely saw better. It didn’t move around as much, it was stiffer and also thinner. It was easier to hold things, so it seemed to make my sawing easier.
Sidenote- I already had one GRS mounting plate but I wanted another one, and while looking for that I saw Knew Concepts had an adapter that lets you rotate whatever you’re putting on the GRS mounting plate on the adapter. I had been reading about cutting your own pancake dies (they cut metal shapes) and again in some blog or board I read that they should be cut on an angle. So I decided to get the adapter also.
Also, at the time I received the bench pin and adapter, I was trying to saw tiny things. I wanted to cut right to the edge, but then I was thinking- will I be able to solder that (because there would be barely any edge)? So then I thought that if I put the bench pin on an angle as I’m sawing, maybe I’d have enough of a lip to solder. My thinking was the saw would cut up against the piece at the top, but at the bottom of the thickness, with the piece on the angle, the saw would be positioned out a bit and there would be a tiny lip.
That was my thinking anyway- that part might not work 😉 . But the side effect of cutting on the angle was that the dust from sawing, which is another thing that I absolutely detested, didn’t seem to collect on my cutting line. While sawing, I get dust on the design and it obliterate whatever line I am trying to follow. With the bench pin on the angle, the dust would just kind of float away from the piece that I was sawing. So instead of stopping every 3 seconds to brush the dust away, I barely had to do that. For that reason alone, that adaptor to me is worth its weight in gold.
So if you’re struggling with sawing issues like I was, you might want to consider looking at the Knew Concepts bench pin and possible the rotating adapter rather than another new saw, haha.
My whole reason for looking into sawing help was actually an investigation into clamping ideas. I know, I know! And somehow I ended up with a bench pin and no clamp (yet) 🙂 . While I was taking the bench pin for a test drive, I had a piece to saw that had excess material around the impression. I tried to use the brass bar on the bench pin that is meant to allow you to saw or file on angles as a clamp of sorts. I found that I could slide the excess material from the piece I was sawing underneath the bar and then screw it down, and it was kind of a poor man’s clamp. It worked well, especially for this type of sawing piece. I was trying to saw a straight part of the design. When I got to the top, I unscrewed the bar and then moved the piece and sawed the top part. So the bar actually did help. I’m sure that it would not work as a clamping system all the time, but on that piece it worked well.
So I really love this Knew Concepts bench pin. I still do not own a clamping system. I am still trying to figure out which one I want, especially to hold down teeny tiny things in order to saw. This thinner Knew Concepts bench pin actually was much less painful while trying to hold things down and it didn’t move around, so it just felt easier to saw without the piece moving all over the place.
Also, I didn’t mention this in the videos- but longer nails help. I usually kept them short because I always had ink or paint or now metal under them and they always looked horrendous. However, one of the times I was trying to use my fingers to hold a piece I hadn’t trimmed my nails so they were longer. And they really did help. That was my Ahah moment as to why so many male jewelers sport long nails, haha. I am still going to get a clamping system. But in the meanwhile, this all has actually has been helping.
As a last tip, again for beginners, is check your saw blade size! I was trying to saw an impression I made from a Potter USA die. The die was Maiden of the Mist, and I am pretty sure it was 16 gauge copper, so a little bit thick. And definitely stiff after impressing the metal into the die. The resulting piece is not super detailed and it’s not super tiny. I shouldn’t have had much of a problem sawing her. But almost immediately, Snap! I broke my blade. I did that 4 more times and I was trying to figure out, what was going on? It shouldn’t have been that hard. I mean, I know I’m not the greatest sawer but that was just ridiculous. So when I went to finally get the fifth… it’s sad that it took me that long… but I went to get a new saw blade I realized what the problem was.
I use Pepetools saw blades. I generally don’t break that many in a row. One of the things I like about them is that on the nice little container they come in, the size of the blade is listed in large clear print. Also, even better it tells you what thickness of metal you should be using that blade with. So I was using one for thinner metal. Again I can’t believe it took me that long to realize it! Finally I grabbed a one aught blade for thicker metal- I could have gone a little bit thicker, but that was what I had. As soon as I switched to the thicker blade, I ended up doing the whole rest of the piece with no problem.
So again, if you’re a beginner, check you saw blade size, especially if you are having trouble. Don’t wait until the fifth one to realize it is the wrong blade for the job, haha.
Hopefully this has been helpful.
Enjoy!
