Rolling mills are great tools to have in any jewelry shop. They provide quick and efficient ways to roll out metal stock as well as countless ways to texture, pattern, and rework your metal creations. Once you’ve selected your rolling mill (or even if you’ve had one for years) this post includes some great rolling mill tips; from unpacking your mill to regular care that will keep it performing its best for years to come to diving in and using it for a million different jewelry-making tasks!
Bonny Doon
Seamless Summer Rings with the Bonny Doon Split-Die Ring-Forming Kit!
It’s hot outside!! In these temperatures, chunky necklaces and bracelets are shed in favor of simpler choices—like lightweight, easy-to-wear rings! Use the Bonny Doon Split-Die Ring-Forming Kit to create perfect, summertime rings, every time. Today, on The Studio, Phil Poirier demonstrates this ingenious tool—watch and then dream up your own line of summertime rings!
Look at What You Can Do with Bonny Doon Hydraulic Metal Forming!
Ashli Brooke Taylor created her Baroque-inspired Copper Pendant using the Bonny Doon hydraulic press. This innovative and powerful tool allowed her to direct all hydraulic energy on the design rather than expending her own physical energy on forming the metal with a hammer. After you see Ashli’s beautiful results, you’ll be asking yourself what YOU can do with a Bonny Doon!
“Man, That’s a Hydraulic Hammer!” Bonny Doon’s Urethane Forming Hammers
When Phil Poirier, of Bonny Doon Engineering, showed his new urethane hammer to Eddie Bell, vice president of manufacturing at Rio Grande, Eddie was immediately excited by its possibilities for jewelry-making and said, “Man, that’s a hydraulic hammer!” Although the Bonny Doon urethane forming hammer does rather look like a colorful plastic hammer, it is actually so much more than that! Take a look at today’s post on The Studio, and see what this dynamo can do for your metal forming!
Texturing Metal with the Bonny Doon Hammer
When Phil Poirier designed the Bonny Doon Hammer, he was thinking about the ideal tools for anticlastic and synclastic raising. Since debuting the hammer at last year’s SNAG Conference, we have found that it is capable of much more than that.
New Bonny Doon Hammers and Stakes

In the early 90s I created a line of jewelry which used anticlastic and synclastic shapes made from strips of gold and silver. The need for efficient hammers and stakes inspired me to develop and make a urethane-headed hammer and stakes which would form the shapes I needed. . .
Bonny Doon Rolling Mill Pattern Plates in Action!

Phil Poirier of Bonny Doon recently paid us a visit here at Rio and we made a video to show off the popular Bonny Doon Rolling Mill Pattern Plates.
The creative possibilities are endless! Watch for a bunch of new designs on our website in April!
Bonny Doon Tools for your Hydraulic Press!

We were thrilled when Phil Poirier bought Bonny Doon Engineering in 2006, not only because his career as both a jeweler and a tool-maker made him the perfect person to take over Bonny Doon, but also because his workshop is in Taos, New Mexico, just a few hours north of us. We’ve made a habit of dropping in on his facility every once in awhile, and we try to bring a video camera with us, when we go.