Very few tools are needed for this kind of work but it is important to use the right kind.

The repousse hammer is a jeweler's hammer which has one end, or face of it flat and the other rounded like a peining hammer; it is shown in Fig. 35.

Fig. 35. How To Hold A Repousse Hammer

Then a number of blunt chisels and markers called repousse tools as shown at B, Fig. 35, are needed to emboss the design in the sheet metal. These tools cost about 30 cents apiece and a set of eight or ten tools will serve you well. For the bolder parts of the work boxwood punches can be used but steel punches are always used for the finer work.

Fig. 35B. A Punch And Punch Designs For Repousse Work

How to Prepare the Work

The kind of metal that is easiest to work is cold-rolled sheet copper28

Fig. 35c. How To Hold A Repousse Punch

No. 32 Brown and Sharp gauge, but brass, aluminum and pewter can also be hammered.

To get the work ready fasten the piece of sheet metal to a wooden block with a cement made as fol28 Can be bought of Patterson Brothers, Park Row, New York, or of the Frost and Adams Co., Cornhill, Boston, Mass.

lows: melt 1 pound of Burgundy pitch in an iron pan, or skillet, and stir in 1 pound of dental plaster of paris,29 until they are thoroughly mixed. Then put in a tablespoonful each of tallow and of resin which will make the cement stick better.

Take a board 1 inch thick, 10 inches wide and 12 inches long and make a tray of it by nailing a strip of wood around it so that it is 1/2 an inch higher than the surface of the board. Pour the cement while it is still hot on the board and press the sheet of metal hard down on it; let it get cold when it will be firmly cemented to it.