Monday 4 April 2011

New tools


Last week I tried out a new polishing system. It is a series of three different grades of rubber to polish up the silver just like using graded paper, Tripoli and Rouge.

I liked the idea of using these as they do not involve polishing compounds that get stuck in fine detail and in stamped words that make them look dirty (and which takes longer to have to soak and clean them afterwards).

I have to say the results so far are promising, the final polish has not come out as good as using rouge just yet but I am still practicing and it is not far off. The added bonus too is that they are supposed to be able to polish up semi precious stones too and there is no risk of getting the tips confused as they are colour co-ordinated....brilliant.

They are more expensive and by the looks of it they do not last that long either so time will tell if they are worth it but as every jewellery maker will tell you - it's all about saving time where you can without lowering the quality of the finish.

I also got my first batch of 'tarnish free' silver in the post this week after a delay and I am excited to get using it. It doesn't look like much but it was a good £100 worth......new pricing structure required here! The prices of silver are really only going one way but hey, it is a precious metal.

I plan on doing an order for cufflinks in this tarnish free silver as they will be perfect to see the difference on fire stain (i.e. if there is any reduction on this silver as promised) and thus time it takes to produce them.

Well I have donated to my wonderful charity of choice now so I think I might start one of those running total things where I can see how much I put in over the years....just to keep track and remind me to do good things for others. I just read on the Moving Mountains website that the founder (Gavin Bates) is doing his 6th Everest ascent this year and you can even follow his progress in a very high tech way here:http://www.myeverestchallenge.com/
Best of luck Gavin, come home safely.

Right, back to my studio now as I have quite a few orders stacking up again....exciting!! Oh and the rings I started last week are not done yet...in fact I am on my third version of one of them as it is proving technically harder than you would think to look at it....oh the fun in the studio!!!