What is Metal Fabrication?

When using metal materials such as metal plate and wire for the purposes of jewelry making, very often the jewelry maker is required to shape and form the metal. The techniques used to do this are considered fabrication techniques where you use methods such as sawing, filing, and hammering to reform the metal piece into a different structure and shape.

Fabrication, therefore, is different than other types of metal techniques such as casting where you might have some kind of mold and your pour the hot metal into the mold to create the structure you need for a jewelry piece. With fabrication, you use hand tools, some finesse, and a little elbow grease to come up with the desired results.

While casting and soldering may get all the glory when it comes to metalsmithing, neither is really possible without first learning how to fabricate metal. In fact, you can’t really do either without also doing at least a little fabrication. For example, you may cast a metal charm, but you still need to file off the rough parts and polish the finished piece. You may need to solder two pieces of metal together, but unless the metal has been cut, filed, and cleaned properly, you won’t have soldering success.

To find out more about the basics of fabrication, techniques used, and some jewelry making projects to get you started, refer to my Fabrication and Information section.