This lady brought this in, she knew nothing about it except that it was given to her by her "Grandmother". Most of the time my customers are hotel, club, and restaurant staff where they're more likely to find stuff which is where I come across all of this stuff they find. Sometimes they don't know they're carrying a fortune like this one. Excuse my bench I was in the middle of a manic rush. This stone is a spectacle to look at, once in a lifetime kinda thing, I promise you. This is the fruitage of this job, seeing new jewelry.

I just realized that I hadn't posted in a month so here's why. I've been experimenting with copper in many fields of link design. Seeing what links can be made more efficiently and still look good. Also the twisting of the copper and the thickness of it is what I've been working with. I discovered a pattern in the coiling of one specific bracelet in the second picture. It's the only bracelet that behaved a certain way during the steam room test. It got extremely hot to the point of burning my skin. I can only assume that it was because of the immense amount of space that's exposed to the heat environment compared to the surface area that's actually touching your skin. Still this phenomenon still baffles me to this day. No other bracelet has done that, welcome to the slinky design.

Did a buckle over the weekend and we got to remove lots of old antiquing or black enamel background finish on sterling silver plated buckle. I used the stainless steel bristle Dremel wheel and made sure to wear goggles 🥽 and safety equipment again. Heated up some cleaning solution and even let it soak in a separate pickle with the acid cleaning solution and that helped loosen lots of it up then I scrubbed it with a toothbrush with more cleaning solution before I attempted to dremel it off by wheel and it did get it off easier but still in some crevices it still stuck. So I then just went straight to the buffer with green zam compound and cleaned again with steam cleaner too, welcome another member. Also on the back of the buckle to take it off the belt I used a clamper to loosen and backward pliers opened between the pin that goes through the leather belt back into the buckle hinges. Make sure you put it back in the right way the first time and not backwards like I did in front of the customer but we just had a big laugh, took 30 min and I charged 30 dollars. Careful not to polish off the plating.

Even after so many years doing this I still fall victim to mistakes, I had one last week with a thin mariner link chain 1mm 750 18k. I was in the middle of working with past due repairs when I took this in #1 I didn't check the karat, #2 I shouldn't have taken it in, #3 when unsure about taking stuff in then don't take it in. I had gotten too comfortable and thought I could do it with the blow torch and assumed it was 10k. This is what happens when you got millions of things on your mind and just go into swamp mode where you can't get ahead of your deadlines and can no longer take in walk ins so make sure you stay away from this mode. Give yourself enough time to get the job done and advise the customer if you need more time. Check stuff before accepting to repair the jewelry making sure it doesn't need any additional work before it leaves the customers sight.

So these type of links along with any other flat chains tend to tangle up between themselves and most chains will but these can be fixed easier than hammering them by rolling them out through the rolling mill at just the exact width of the link but just a bit over and holding the chain as it goes but not pulling on it to aid it through the process of going through. Welcome new members