[Jewelry making - Article 00238] - Re: [Orchid] Getting even contours

[Thejewelmaker]

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Joel

    If you have cabochon experience you should already have a pretty
    good eye, your comment on light reflection is spot on. Developing a
    good eye for shaping and finishing elegant form to perfection is
    essential and in my experience one of the weakness that I encounter
    most frequently in jewellery workers who knock on my door. I also
    migrated into goldwork from lapidary and my trained eye was one of my
    advantages. 

    I'm sure that a lot of people will jump in on this one, so I'll try
    to catch this from a slightly different perspective. With skill,
    experience, a good eye and a pair of trained hands you can develop
    and control the surface with almost any firm cutting tool. I've seen
    jewellers and even polishers get excellent results using some unusual
    methods. 

    Assuming that you are at the bench and working with relatively small
    objects, I would start with control; place a padded block in the
    corner of your sweeps drawer firmly under your left elbow so that
    your forearm angles upward to the bench pin. This will lock your hand
    in place on the bench pin, almost like a swivel vise, you can of
    course use arm movement if you need to sweep the work against the
    tool but generally wrist movement is all you need. If you are using a
    rotary handpiece with dressed wheels (angled to match the work)
    support the forearm with the pull out armrest. Now you should have
    the hand with the work in it fixed against the pin and the thumb from
    the tool hand jammed against either the bench pin or against your
    work holding thumb. You are now free to pull the cutting wheel
    towards you and freely rotate or twist the work with firm and
    complete control. Nothing is floating around in the air. With
    experience you will find that this works for most of the things that
    you do at the bench, especially with a handpiece. 

    The bench pin is where jewellery is made, the technique described
    above was taught to me by a brilliant old master that distained
    sloppy work habits, especially with handpieces. "Think like a milling
    machine with your= two thumbs touching and your hands a pair of
    interlocking swivel vises, both arms always supported. Your handpiece
    is not a pencil poking at your work, grasp it firmly in the palm of
    your hand not your fingers" there was more including a g= ood slap at
    the back of the head, but you get the idea. 

    That said, I don't recommend using a hand piece and shaped wheels
    unless you have a lot of experience with them or a good background
    cutting cabochons. I do, but I have thousands of hours behind me and
    have used and shaped every kind of wheel imaginable, I have a trained
    sense of what to use and when, which took years to develop. Even so I
    use files and sanding sticks a some point on nearly every piece. I
    must have a couple of hundred files in my drawer and I couldn't live
    without them. If you have the room to sweep over the work sanding
    sticks are indispensable near the finial stages. Even the most
    carefully formed surface will reveal minute irregularities under the
    sweep of your sanding stick. 

    If you are only using files and sanding sticks then the technique is
    different, with the wrist firmly semi-locked the whole arm holding
    the tool is swept upward and forward at an angle over the contoured
    surface of the work. Try to mimic the surface curvature of the work
    with your arm movement, be sure to crosscut at about 45 degrees.
    Twist and rotate your work to match the changes that you observe need
    to be made. Here the rule is movement and speed. For this work you
    still lock the holding hand in place but you clamp the work firmly
    against the bench pin with your fingers. Keen observation and
    constant adjustment are critical, after a while you get a feel for
    the process and will develop a skill that you can be proud of and
    create work with a wonder feeling of emotion. 

    Lighting and vision is very important in this work, I use a
    combination incandescent and round florescent lamp, sometime two,
    that I can position above the work or to one side. Sometimes I will
    place it nearly over my head if that is the angle that I need. The
    standard three bar florescent lamp is the worst light source for this
    work. I took them off of the benches nearly fifteen years ago. 

    As in lapidary you work from course to fine, improving the surface
    as you progress. Don't use the polishing room to fix up the piece.
    Your work should be perfectly shaped and nearly finished before it
    leaves the bench. I usually prepolish at the bench, I'm already there
    and the memory of the surface is fresh in my minds eye. I just chuck
    a buff or an angled felt and touch the piece with rouge. I might use
    a little white diamond on a mounted wheel brush sweeping it nearly
    flat across the surface, it depends on what the work needs at that
    point, Be sure to keep the work clean between the two. Finial colour
    is brought up at the polishing machine, usually with a lead center
    mop and a bit of rouge, again a light touch and quick cross-polishing
    movement. Good luck. 

Dennis Smith - thejewelmaker
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