[Jewelry making - Article 01041] - Re: [Orchid] Tricks of the trade

[LainieD]

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    As for tricks of the trade.....for years I collected the tops of the
    big 5 gallon water bottles and I use them for alllll sorts of
    sorting. Among a myriad other places I have them on a little lazy
    susan next to my torch; they hold jump rings and all kinds of other
    things that I use when soldering. Plus they stack pretty
    nicely....nice kinda crookedness. 

    Also.....on my regular old pen pin, (towards the left cuz I'm a
    lefty) I cut a vee into it, so when I'm sawing a ring shank, I can
    slide it right up the vee and it rests nicely. At the point of the
    vee I saw a straight cut up the pin, thus making a guide for the saw
    blade to cut the ring shank. I also put a random saw cut up the pin
    to act as a guide when sawing tubing or wire or whatever.
    Altho....for those jobs I am much more likely to grab that same
    diamond disc I mentioned earlier and cut the piece. It's expensive,
    but to me, indispensible. Just keep it lubed. 

    Now this is really giving something away but that's ok by me cuz
    I've gotten oodles out of this blog and I thank alllllll of you!
    Unfortunately, most of you probably won't need/use it but it may
    give someone inspiration. For years one of my mainstays has been
    mounting treasure coins. Most of the work I do is right on the coin,
    it takes the heat and I can just almost melt gold wire to fit and
    mold it's self around and on top of the coin, making cast looking
    mounts without casting. I love the look and always wanted to do it
    on stones. So, get a 2 part mold material (Rio sells it) mix it up
    and press your stone into it. After it hardens, pop out the stone(or
    whatever you use) use plaster of paris to fill the impression and
    use that as your stone and then mount from the back. 

    I s'pose now I have to give ya'll a link to my website, which I've
    been embarrassed to do so far, so you can look, if you are
    interested, at my coin mounts to see just wth I'm talking about! The
    website is under construction so be kind. 

    Lainie............who spent the day cleaning her shop and will
    probably never find anything again. 

goldenartisans.com
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