Photo by Kenny Eliason : unsplash.com/@neonbrand
Questions Answered
I tell people that you should never be using jeweler’s tools on ferrous metals. This is often met with a confused look.
So this week I’m going to answer a simple question, what are ferrous metals?
Without calling up all my chemistry friends, any metal that is primarily made of iron, or where iron is a primary component in an alloy, like stainless steel, is considered a ferrous metal from the standpoint of a jeweler.
Well, why do we care?
We care because when you use jeweler’s tools, usually made of steel, you can mar the surface of the tool.
Yeah, but why do we care?
Well, we care because once we create an imperfection on the surface of a tool meant to be used on softer metals, like gold and silver (and brass and copper) those same imperfections, marks, and indentations on the tool will get transferred to the softer metal. That in turn creates more work to finish the piece being created. Especially if you’re trying to create a highly polished surface.
“Yeah, but I use power tools for finishing, so what.”
Well, okay, you may not feel like it’s that big of a deal. Until you start working with expensive materials like gold. Sure you can file and sand down the surface of gold to get rid of the imperfections, but not you’ve literally thrown money onto the floor of you studio in the form of gold dust.
So, bottom line, do yourself a favor if you ever decide to make jewelry and get in the habit of using your tools only on your fine metals (gold, silver, copper, etc.) Don’t worry, those tools will wear out over time. When they do, then they can be used on iron and steel in the studio. After all, things like iron/steel binding wire are really helpful to use in the studio. Just don’t use your good tools on them.
News of late
I keep meaning to talk more about the old dentist drill that was handed down through my family. It feels a little boring to me to talk about now, but I will say that I replaced the cord on it, treated as much of the rust as I was able to comfortably, and am now beginning to make use of it to carve charcoal for sterling silver jewelry molds.
There was a ton of time spent cleaning it up and getting it put into use. A huge win for me, after spending hours looking for new drive belts for it, was the realization that drive belts are still widely used in industrial manufacturing. These belts are often custom made, on the fly, using various diameters of polyurethane “cord” that you can buy by the foot. Most industrial applications have special “welders” that will melt the cord/belt to create endless belts. I certainly wasn’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on something I would use ten times over the course of the rest of my life. However, I found a couple of videos on YouTube where people just heated up a utility razor held in vise grip pliers until it was red hot, then melted the ends together like that. It worked like a charm and I now have a brand new drive belt on my 100 year old dentist drill. I put the original cotton drive belt away for emergencies.
Other news?
Vacation was mostly a vacation. I was able to test out a new online store vendor and have decided to move to them. As a result, I was able to go paddle boarding even more than I had originally planned. Yay!
In the Works
Oh boy, this is a double edged sword. I suddenly find myself having to rebuild a website, learn the interface and system of the vendor I want to move to AND still try to make things to sell to people.
I’ve got an order to create a pendant using the design that I created in June while I was doing my very first volunteer shift as the jewelry studio lead at Generator VT, so that’s kind of cool. I recreated the art in vector graphic form about two weeks ago. It’s a good thing I did, because my first pass at this project revealed to me a very long pendant design, which I didn’t care for. Luckily, being a vector graphic, I was able to make it smaller with only a minimal amount of time and effort. So now I’m working on making that in sterling silver.
I’ve also got a few new Galdra Stav pendants that I’m working on casting up. So hopefully, with any luck, I’ll have new things to buy on a NEW website by October.
Well, I think that’s it for this week.
Until next time,
Justin