Thank you for the correction, Mike! I’ll be sure to edit my botched description. 
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I like the monster on the right. 
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Great vintage stamps Aaron! If you find you have no more storage space Ill be glad to help out.
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According to our friend, this was purchased at a tribal person’s yard sale on one of their trips out west. The guy told them it was for making rings. I cleaned it up and waxed it. Odd piece.
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Home made shaping mandrel. Looks like it might used be for making cones or bolo tips. Very cool. Can you put a ruler next to it for scale, @StevesTrail? No one sells this stuff in supply houses. Whoever fashioned this made enough of whatever it was he or she was shaping to invest the time and effort to make this!
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Very cool, thanks for sharing, Steve.
Like @mmrogers, I’m curious as to scale, as well.
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Nice, thanks again. It looks beautiful.
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Thanks @StevesTrail. It’s actually quite a bit larger than I would have first guessed. So “jumbo” cones, like the ones we see on big heishi or rolled beads is my guess. The gradiation needs to be much more gradual for practical use as a ring mandrel. Could also be used for fashioning necklace links of various sizes, or jump rings.
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Good points @mmrogers . I was thinking possibly a pre-forming tool. Like most of us, we have our own tools we made for a specific use; and that use known only to the maker.
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looks like it was a round rattail file in a previous life
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I promised photos of the tools I created for recent buckle collaboration. The images in these photos are of shaping dies, used to create the side walls of the ranger tip for the collaboration with my client, which perfectly matches the shape of the tip itself front and back.
These were created by first cutting the desired shape from 3 sections of 16 gauge copper, drilling matching holes into each layer, applying JB weld to adhere the sections together, inserting sections of number 52 drill shanks to pin the sections into exact alignment and then grinding the edges smooth and to the exact depth of the workpiece, which in this case is 1/8 inch, the same technique was used for both the male snd female portions of the dies, and then capping the female portion with 2 x 2 sections of 16 gauge mild steel sheet. Once again, JB Weld was used to bond the sections together with the outer sides being ground more or less smooth. Naturally, it takes some real time to do all this, but once the dies are made the time to shape the tip sides is reduced probably five fold, which when you’re hand fabricating groups of items saves a lot of time over the long run.
The items on the left-hand side are quality stamps, (e.g “925“, etc. The design faces have been laser cut to size, hand ground around the stamp face, heat hardened, and then individually tempered so the stamps make a clean impression without being so hard as to be brittle enough to break easily.
Tempering process: You’ll have to use your imagination because the photos did not and will not seem to load in order. 1. the newly cut stamp is heated to bright red hot and then quenched in water. 2. The stamp is now a deep gray black so a window is cut the length of the stamp to show a clean steel surface. 3. The stamp is again heated from the striking end creating a band of color which moves down the shaft of the shank as heat travels from one end to the other. 4. As the heat bands reach the centerpoint of the stamp heat is removed, and the stamp is watched carefully as the heat bands continue to slowly move down the shank toward the design end. 5. When the straw colored band reaches the design end of the stamp the stamp is quickly quenched to affix the stamp hardness so that it is hard enough to easily make an impression in precious metals, but not so hard that it is brittle and subject to easy breakage.
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Awesome solution, Mike! This method of laminating thinner materials together to form both the punch and the die is ingenious, and, many times, the only way certain forms can be produced in thinner materials. We’ve done this numerous times in the shop when we’ve needed to make tools to make the finished part. It can be much quicker than machining a matching die set, especially if it’s a particularly long die.
I love how you’ve hallmarked your tools, and really appreciate you taking the time to share the heat treatment process for the stamps.
Thank you for the very informative, detailed, and technically rich post!
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Talent and skills beyond my comprehension. My uncle is restomoding a 1937 Packard and he explains things way beyond what I understand. I so appreciate what you and he do. 
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Mike, you are a true craftsman in every sense of the word. I am beyond impressed with your talent and lifelong dedication to your work.
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Thank you, Aaron. Doesn’t surprise me a bit that you use a similar method in your own shop (although no doubt orders of magnitude more precise and sophisticated). I thought it would be interesting as well for our membership here to get a behind the curtain glimpse at “how the sausage is made”. The tempering method for stamps I learned while apprenticing with Navajo silversmiths many, many years ago, no doubt passed down from their fathers, and their father’s fathers. Your beautiful antique navajo hand made stamps were no doubt similarly tempered back in the day. The technique works with everything from cement nails, to re-bar, files, leaf springs, and automotive valve stems. I can envision them having used a bellows and white hot charcoal embers to heat and temper the stamps, and spent motor oil used to quench.
Much appreciated @here4turquoise, but these are skills pretty much the same as every silversmith in my workshop came through the door with. The whole craft to a great extent depends on the ability of the silversmith to make the tools they need as their need becomes apparent, and they’ll grab just about anything they can find or scrounge up to make them.
Thank you, Tom. I really enjoyed creating the post, and love to share the processes!
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What, may I ask, are you referring to, @Lindquist_Industries?
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What I paid for these tools may be outrageous to someone who’s not moved by them and someone else who is interested in the subject may believe I made out like a bandit.
For me, these tools are special. They had to be crafted before any silver could be worked, and they are the utilitarian art form that allows the beauty in silver and stone I so admire to take shape.
They are cherished, and serve as components in a “still life” display of Navajo silversmithing. I’m not exactly comfortable sharing precisely what I paid publicly, but having an idea of the work and technical prowess required to craft each one, I feel I got them for free.
Similar to Navajo weavings, especially those made from hand spun wool: to account for the cumulative hours invested from shearing the sheep, to washing, carding, and hand spinning the wool, to pulling the finished textile from the loom, the weaver is working for many times less than what modern society considers minimum wage to be. When it’s explained that a $10,000 Two Grey Hills rug took over 2,000 hours to create, there’s a shift in perspective, or at least there should be.
I’ll put it this way, I’ve got much less in these tools than I would have charged to make them. Sadly, things like this end up at pawn shops or antique stores due to no heirs following in the original owner’s footsteps, and they are not priced accordingly to the skill, talent, and craftsmanship that they represent.
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So, I have a question. How easy/difficult is it to track down an artist by their stamps? I wondered because I have a large heavy concho bracelet, unsigned, that I knew could have been made by one of several usual suspects. I found a ring by Calvin Mertinez using what appears to be the same stamp on my cuff. Would I be correct in thinking that theses masters make their own stamps?
This question is really for all of you fellas whom I consider experts around here.
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