How to Metal Punch Bracelet Blanks and Use the EZ-Bender Tool

	The Beadsmith 27 Piece Uppercase Calligraphy Alphabet Letters Punch Set For Metal 3mm SKU: XTL-0756 $45.99
	The Beadsmith Metal Elements EZ-Bender, Cuff Bracelet Tool, Steel SKU: XTL-1063 $10.25
	Eurotool Bench Block Helper - Rubber Base With Interchangeable Steel And Nylon Blocks SKU: XTL-0250 $21.99
	ImpressArt Brass Hammer For Metal Stamping - 1 Pound - 1 Piece SKU: XTL-0277 $20.00
	The Beadsmith Bracelet Bending Pliers - Gently Curve Bracelets And Components SKU: XTL-0084 $18.99
	The Beadsmith Bracelet Stamping Strip, For Altered Jewelry 0.25x6 Inches, Brass (2 Pieces) SKU: PND-0470 $2.99

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi, this is Julie with beadaholique.com eyes it however you like with names a favorite quote whatever you might find inspiring and want to wear so these are really fun to make and they're actually not that hard so what you're going to be needing in terms of your supplies is you're going to need a bracelet blank I have one right here you can see it starts out completely flat this is a quarter inch one but they do come in various widths and then you're going to need some patina and that's going to be what you're going to put into the actual letters to make them pop and then they fit into the video I'm going to show you a quick tip for cleaning up any excess patina you can see I've left a little bit here because I want to be able to show you how to remove that after the patina is dried so those are the actual only supplies you need but you are going to need a number of tools so we need a bench block a hammer the beadsmith ez bender tool we need a punch set this here is by beadsmith it is a calligraphy uppercase you can use whatever set you like and for those who are observing we are missing a couple letters this is our design space set and you might have the same issue at home sometimes these letters go missing so that's just the way that is and then I've got the bead Smith AB this is a bracelet bending tool as well is going to help with the little kinks I'll talk about towards the end of the video here paper towels and then a disposable paintbrush as well because there are a few of few supplies but more tools it does mean that you can make these for pretty inexpensively once you've purchased the tool so I know it's a little bit of an investment getting started but once you've done that this since you only really need these two things you can make lots and lots and lots of these bracelets which is fun all right so enough intro let me show you actually how to do this so we are going to go ahead and we're going to stamp the bracelet blank before we bend it so that's important now I'm going to be doing the to be or not to be the main question whenever you're doing a saying is where do you start on the blank and it can be kind of tricky to figure out is not really a precise science the only tip I really have is try to figure out just by looking at it how much space each letter takes so if you look at this punch set and I'm sorry if this is information people already have but is something I do want to share because it's a challenge that I've always kind of struggled with so you look at how big that letter is and you think okay so T zero for two would be about that big and then space and then be e be about that big space or space not space T oh space B okay so in theory this is my saying it's going to take up about this much space okay so that means I got this much left so half of this it's about that okay so then for where I need to start you need to start right about here I know that's not a precise science if you're making a lot of these once you make the first one you'll be able to just tell how much space you need on each side but for that first one you do have to do a little bit of guesswork so I want to start with my T right here so I'm going to grab my T and what's nice about this set by beadsmith is they're all lined up which is really great so T so here I want the lettering of the actual punch facing me and I'm going to line up the edge of my punch with the edge of my blank and I want this straight side to be completely straight and in line with this straight edge so I don't want it like this I want it like this got it I'm holding it completely upright going to take my hammer and try to do one nice clean hit so we've got our tea and you can see it really doesn't stand out very much but we're going to go back and take care of that at the end tea oh so now where do you put your next letter what I like to recommend is you put it pretty close so I'm just barely touching my last letter but because there's a little bit of space between the letter and the actual edge of the punch they should not touch each other when I actually do the punching so again I want this to be nice and straight against a straight line on my edge I know my hand is blocking it from the camera a little bit I apologize so there's two and then B so I'm going to do a little bit of a space between the letters because I this is my space between my words biggest tip just make sure at least with this particular punch set that all that beadsmith wording is always facing you that way you know your letter will be up right all right we've got our saying and not too bad in terms of our estimate as to where that needed to be centered on the blank so here we go and now we need to go ahead and we need to really make that lettering pop of course it's a personal preference if you would rather not and you just like it like that great but I really want to show you how you can really highlight your saying so we're going to use vintage patina and I'm going to pull over a little scrap piece of paper right here so I need something to put my patina on it I want to seep through to my table if you have a post a note or a little piece of plastic that would work as well so shake up the patina okay so grab a paintbrush and we are going to paint over the letters and we're really kind of lying to make sure we get into the grooves and we want to go somewhat fast here you don't want to really let it dry okay take a paper oops page take a paper towel grip it slide it off do it again and really rub at it so what you're doing is you're taking it off the surface but is staying in the recess of the lettering and we did get a little bit of extra over here but like I mentioned at the very end of the video I'll show you how to go ahead and take care of that my paintbrush away we are done with it now there's no need to seal vintage patina it's made to use with metal it's a really great use for this okay so now we need to bend it into a bracelet shape to go ahead and do that we're going to use the ez bender tool we're going to put the end down into the well now we're going to hold it and we're going to bend it right go ahead to the other side flip it around and Bend so now we have a nice bracelet shape now depending on how much stamping you do and is why I brought this over sometimes the actual stamping process work hardened to the metal in certain spots so a spot that has been stamped will be a little bit harder and stiffer than a non stamped part if that is the case you can take a tool such as this and you can go ahead and smooth it out I also really like doing that for the ends as well just to curve it in a little bit more so you see this end is now a little bit more curved now this one actually really ended up quite smooth to begin with so I don't know if this tool was necessary but I did want to show it to you because on these two I did end up with a couple little spots that weren't quite as curved as I would have liked and I did end up using this tool so that is something you run across this is a good fix for that now another fix is had we get rid of the extra patina well that's actually really easy and something you probably have on on hand at home its NIM polish remover so I'm just going to take a paper towel and I'll clean up the piece we just did because I think we ended up with which one did I just do here we ended up with some right there so that should be pretty good to show cleaning up okay I'm going to do this off camera just because I don't want to spill on here but basically you're just saturating the paper towel with some nail polish remover okay so we've got our nail polish remover and then we got our little bit of extra patina so we just rub over it and the nail polish remover will remove that extra patina I would do it fairly quickly after you've made your bracelet I would not necessarily let this dry for a week or two I don't think it would really affect it but you know what why why risk it so any place you just have a little bit of extra patina just rub with the nail polish you can see how it's coming off one other quick tip I just want to share with you is that you don't always have to make your letters straight and even so this is one look and it's beautiful this is another look and I know that this one is not for everyone but this is a more casual design and I purposefully made my lettering crooked which was really fun and very relaxing so basically what I did was some of the letters I lined up with the edge and then others I actually rotated purposefully as I went so you can see that they're facing a different direction they're at a different angle so that's just another idea if perhaps you've been wanting to do some metal punching and maybe a little intimidated by making straight lines or straight letters this is a really fun easy way of going about it so just that little side note here before I sign off so if you're interested in doing a project like this you can find these bracelet links an easy bender tool the alphabet sets and everything else you saw in this video and many more at beadaholique.com you