[Jewelry making - Article 00153] - Re: [Orchid] Bench Test Basics

[Jay Whaley]

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    Having been a bench jeweler for over 30 years, I would have to agree
    with John Donivan about the neccessity of learning how to use the
    rolling mill and drawplate to make your own sheet and wire stock. He
    is right. Manufacturing shops just don't normally have a huge
    selection of sheet and wire, ready-made, to work with. It would be
    prohibitively expensive to stock such a selection. A shop
    specializing in custom jewelry work will normally work with ready
    made findings, hand-made wax models for casting, and fabrication,
    using sheet and wire. If a shop can't buy exactly what they need from
    a catalog, the jeweler will need to make it in the shop. The speed
    and efficiency of the bench jeweler is crucial to the business. If
    your job is to carve waxes, you'll need to learn to do it accurately
    and fairly quickly. If the custom job requires some fabrication, then
    you have to grab the raw material, melt an ingot, and produce what
    you need with a rolling mill with speed and accuracy. I simply don't
    agree with many metalsmiths who feel that making their own stock with
    a rolling mill is "too labor intensive", or a waste of time. With
    experience, you can get REAL fast with the rolling mill, and produce
    custom stock for the specific job you are making, with minimal
    waste. Honestly, it is far faster for me to go ahead and make the
    specific stock I need in my shop( any carat or color) than pour
    through catalogs, then wait on "hold" for the salesperson to take my
    order. ...That's not counting the shipping time and waiting in the
    line at the post office for the package. I would also like to make
    the comment that although my years behind the bench were extremely
    valuable to me, and gave me a myriad of experiences, it was very
    brutal in many ways. Working all day behind a workbench is hard on
    the hands,eyes, shoulders and neck. In the early 80's, when I was the
    busiest, I really needed my weekends off, when I had 2 days for my
    bruised and battered hands to heal up so I could do it all again the
    next week. 

Jay Whaley UCSD Craft Center
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