[Jewelry making - Article 00022] - [Orchid] Working school setup issues

[Kathleen Yorston]

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    I have a small jewelry/metal school teaching beginning and
    intermediate classes, as well as offering studio memberships. Now,
    this is a unique situation because I am not an experienced jeweler. I
    am a student, a student who owns a jewelry school (life is funny
    somoetimes). Our founder and core instructor is a wonderful,
    nurturing, talented jeweler and metal worker who now works for the
    school as an employee, since she decided the path to her happiness
    was not running a business. Since I am starting my education at being
    an educator. I am looking for help. My first concern is for safety,
    safety for our students and our staff. 

    Here is question 1) 

    We currenly use acetylene/air for our torches. We are moving into a
    new space shortly. This space was a former cafe/restaurant. Our
    future soldering area needs to be situated where there is currently a
    commercial restaurant stainless steel hood with a chemical fire
    suppressant system. This sounds cool at first, but the hood system is
    designed to move A LOT of air (think wind tunnel). It is also abit
    small for a 4 or 5 station soldering wall. If I was to use this hood,
    I could maybe get 2-3 soldering stations safely under it. And then I
    would still have to use some other exhaust system for the other 3
    stations, although it moves so much air,I think it would exhaust the
    entire room. Does anyone have experience using such an exhaust system
    in a workshop environment? Any suggestions? 

    Question 2) 

    Is acetylene the safest fuel for a student operated torch? Are there
    safer effective torch fuels? We have natural gas in the building,
    would that be safer? What is a water torch I have seen postings on?
    Would someone share with me their safety orientation materials on
    torch safety so that I can be sure we are hitting all the points. I
    do have as a resource, the wonderful safety book by Charles
    Lewton-Brain. 

    Any help or suggestions are truly appreciated.

Kathleen Yorston
Pouncing Rain Jewelry and MetalWorkingCenter
www.pouncingrain.com

 
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