Tool Talk How to Use and Prepare your Flat/Half Round Pliers

I have so many favorite tools that it doesn’t do any of them justice to call them all “favorites”, but today I will highlight a tool that I seem to reach for almost every day, and I would be at a loss without it. It falls in the category of favorite tool for that reason, it is a pair of Half Round/Flat Pliers, so today I will talk about how to use them and how to modify them to work better for you.

I like to prepare the surfaces of most of my tools so that they do don’t mark the jewelry that I am working on. Most of the tools that you buy are going to need a little “clean-up” so let’s look at how I clean up these pliers. Find a way to hold or support your pliers, I sometimes use a Small Vise, but in this case I use my Bench Pin. I then sand the rounded part of the pliers with a series of sandpaper, 320 Grit – 400 Grit – and 600 Grit. I want to get the deeper scratches out.

Then I work on the flat side of the pliers, I attack the deeper scratches with a Medium Snap-on Disc, then finish it with a 600 Grit Sanding Stick to keep it flat. (see how I make mine in Day24)

  

 

The purpose for these pliers is to bend shanks, wire, sheet, etc. into a round or half round shape. If you use regular pliers to do this, you will leave gouges or marks on the inside of the curve from the flat end of the pliers. With a pair of Half-Round pliers, you will not do this. It will leave a small mark from pressure, but the deeper gouges will not be there.

    

There is your “JewelryMonk goodness” for the day, if you have a pair of these pliers, you know how valuable they are, make sure you clean the inside edges of scratches. If you don’t have a pair of these yet, envy your jewelry friends who do already.

Now go leave your mark in your community.

Have a Great Day!

Doug