Perfboard jeweling jig

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Rob Cruickshank shares this tip for easily creating an evenly spaced jeweling pattern on metal –

Inspired by the article in MAKE: #19, and needing to make an ugly piece of brass pretty in a hurry, I hit upon the idea of using perfboard as a jig for jewelling. (Also known as engine turning) The large piece of perf is stuck to the drill press bed with double-sided tape. (I use this )
Then the work is stuck to the smaller piece of perf, with more tape. The small piece of perf has header pins soldered in, then cut to size, so that they only protrude to the depth of the bottom perfboard, and don’t come all the way through. Using the pins to index it, the top board can be stepped around the bottom board in 0.1″ increments to produce the desired pattern. It’s best to use fibreglass board for both boards, the phenolic is not nearly flat enough.

… perfboard – not just for soldering anymore!

From the pages of MAKE:

MAKE Volume 19, page 130 – Jeweled Finish