Christmas Is Just Around The Bend (And So Am I!)

My plans for my new phase of life are slowly starting to come together…

I’m getting a lot of respect from my family by taking the route that I have. My wife is still skeptical, however, and wants to see “finished product”.

As you all know, I have no intentions of giving myself the formal title of jeweler, goldsmith, or silversmith. These are highly dignified terms that belong to people with decades of supervised experience and a completely developed intuitive design discipline, neither of which I will ever have.

So, when I am in the mode of creating tools for creating jewelery I would probably call myself a precious materials process engineer. And when I am in the jewelry making mode using what I invent, I would probably call myself a mere crafter (which sounds at least a little better than “hack”). And I switch between the tool-making and tool-using modes quite often.

This is an extremely different approach to creating jewelery, and a very alien way of thinking as compared to the traditional jeweler’s mindset.

I have the greatest respect for true artisans and I believe what they do to create beautiful things is as close to magic as I can think of. But as Arthur C. Clark once wrote: “any sufficiently high technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

So, since my outlook is so completely non-intuitive and non-magical… I have to create my own sufficiently high technology if I want to achieve anything close to the same effects as the magicians can.

I have several advantages on my side to make up my lack of artistic instinct: I have a lifetime of electronics experience from my amateur radio hobby, I have a lifetime of software engineering experience from my career as a software designer, I have about 18 credits of chemistry and physics from my college days, my mathematics foundations goes all the way up to calculus and linear algebra, and last but certainly not least, I had taken a shop course in high school so I understand power tools along with the drafting and reading of blueprints.

This is neither a better approach or a worse approach… and there are definite tradeoffs… it is just simply my approach.

My goal is to jump straight into intarsia utilizing silver, gem materials, and rare woods; as soon as I possibly can by gathering sufficient tools and techniques for doing so.

But I might make some basic jewelry like earrings for my wife as exercises in gaining skills along the way.

The locals that I had shown my leveled polished silver ingots off (see previous blog entries) were extremely impressed that these were my first efforts. When I described to them the types of mechanisms to perform most of the work involved (CNC fly cutting, power sanding on different grits, then using Zam), it didn’t seem to reduce any of the respect I had just suddenly gained from them. I asked them if they thought I was cheating… they said no.

I have been very busy doing other things than working on my RezLathe:

1) I recently acquired and refurbished an early model Gryphon C-series diamond bandsaw. This beastie is going to be essential for beginning intarsia projects.

2) More recently, my wife asked me for a Christmas wish list that she could give to my father-in-law and that she felt I ought to give to my father. I have such things on it as a flat lap machine (priority 1 on the list), a compact rolling mill (priority 2), a Taig Micro Lathe (priority 3), a Smith Little Torch (priority 4), and a diamond wire saw (priority 5 since I have the diamond bandsaw now).

Since I get a $100 monthly allowance from my family’s combined income, I can probably get myself for Christmas any one thing that my father or father-in-law do not pick out…. or get lots of accessories.

3) I got a phone announcement from my father pledging his support of my goals by purchasing one of the tools on my life… I do hope it is the flat lap!

4) My father-in-law has been visiting the past week and will be staying for another week at least. A day after he arrive he told me that he had looked at my wish list, had ordered something on it, and then email my father in order to prevent duplication of efforts.

5) Today my father-in-law and I went to a major flea market where I picked up a used disk and belt sander in working condition for $35. He had even pointed it out and suggested that I buy it! This might come in handy for sanding silver after fly cutting instead of using an upside-down hand sander (the sandpaper kept falling off).

6) My wife told me she wanted me to buy myself some stocking stuffers using family funds so that my little girl could still believe in Santa. I went over to the Bell Forest Products website and picked out a sampler’s worth of rare woods for $30 for myself, including some of the famed Gaboon Ebony, and an identical sampler to stuff into my father-in-law’s stockings. I then also went over to OnLineMetals for a selection of small aluminum blocks for $25.

7) I THINK I FOUND A MENTOR!
One of my neighbors, an elderly lady who happened to be one of the prior postmasters and even one-time mayor, has an equally elderly brother living a few hours away who had been into enamelling. The enamelist called me back and told me he was eager to set his equipment back up and teach me the basics, because it would give him something to do, and he was interested in collaborations! I told him that I could also machine silver to his specifications for enamelling using my computer controlled mill, and would he also like to see my machine shop while he was visiting his sister. He was definitely excited by the idea, and he wanted to start sometime early after New Year’s Day.
Finally, my little girl turns 6 tomorrow. The whole family, father-in-law included, is going out for bowling and Chinese.

Cheers!