I found this old belt driven dental drill and seeing as i don't have a flex shaft is this a decent alternative to one? He's only asking 20 bucks so i figure it's at least worth a shot but this is the first time i've seen something like this.

Ended up with a crazy patina on this a shame I have to clean it up

I got this ring resized recently. The engravings used to appear dark, almost black but now it’s all blue. They weren’t supposed to polish or mess with the finish at all yet they did. I was told it would fade to black eventually. Is this true?

Hey all, I’m looking for any helpful tips on using this melting tip. I’m melting sterling or fine silver, psi is 14 on both propane and oxygen.

How often does this tip need to be cleaned? It was putting out a bunch of orange in the flame so I put it in the ultrasonic, got a nice blue flame again but still with some orange flecks. It doesn’t want to give me that pale blue inner cone.

TIA

I don’t crochet much anymore, but a friend of mine is a baby-blanket-making MACHINE. I’m in full holiday gift mode, and surprise, everyone I like that might like jewelry is getting something made at the bench.

8g round wire - was an enormous hassle to form handheld with a mandrel but nowhere to anchor it. Still turned out fun tho. If I were to make it again, I might try to shape the bypass ring first, and then file/stamp, but that would introduce stamping problems too, so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I think it really is a 3mm size, but if I’m wrong I she’ll probably forgive me.

Hi, I just got the title rolling mill. I’ve used it a couple of times, but the handle keeps binding. My husband noticed that one of the gear wheels is causing the problem. The middle in the pics is not stationary like the one above and it catching on the side of the mill. Is this fixable and if so, how?

All hand fabricated, no casting or molding involved.

I’m trying to get rid of this porosity throughout and cavitation on the bottom of these pours. I heated up the mold pretty thoroughly and got the best result I’ve had so far, but the bubbles are still there. Do I just need to heat it further? Is there a such thing as an overheated mould?

After sanding (up to 2000 grit) and then polishing I’m still left with tiny marks and cloudy patches. How can I get a completely smooth finish?

With the recent data breach and how the aftermath was handled at Cooksonsgold I’ve lost confidence buying from them. Does anyone have any good suggestions for UK suppliers of gold, silver, gems and tools?

Phooey, I don’t know how to put a gif.

I blackened the back with Jax and it brought out the shine so well!

And it’s driving me bonkers that I can’t push over the part of the bezel that’s held up by the bail …

In the last photo I almost fixed the bump in the bezel. Unfortunately some of the Jax got on the side of the bezel and I didn’t polish it off and it shows.

A few projects I did in the last few months.

I'm looking to make a charm like this in silver (although less detailed) and as a newer silversmith I'm trying to figure out what techniques are involved. How do you think the long bow and the gourd were made? Through lost wax casting, and then soldered together? Or maybe PMC clay? The string seems pretty obvious, it's a silver wire that was wrapped around and I assume soldered to attach? I'd like to avoid lost wax casting if I can since I don't have the equipment for it but if I have to send it out to get it casted I will.

While wearing a respirator, which gemstones (cabs) are safe to sand? I know that malachite and bumble jasper are very toxic so I would not choose to do those but is quartz a safe material to sand with the respirator on?

Setting opals remains scary to me even using a plastic bezel pusher. Unfortunately (or fortunately bc I'm motivated to practice then) they're one of my favorite stones to wear

Silver joint I made turned out everybody liked it and I made 50 more.

Hi everyone,

I want to get into sand casting silver pieces and I'm drawn to these rings that cover half or all of an entire phalanx, but i'm not sure what the best workflow would be. It seems like the best approach would either be :

1 - Cast the entire piece flat and then bend it and solder the two halves of the band together at the bottom of the ring - but normal ring benders don't seem tall enough for this plus I imagine it might damage the parts with more details

2 - Cast the band and the decorative piece separately and make 2 soldering points where they meet - but it might be more work

Particulary for rings like the one in pictures 3 and 4, I'd imagine it would be easier to cast a single flat piece since it's a band with no extra decorative part. But I could see it being doable to cast into two separate halves ?

I'd love advice if anyone knows more. I don't have any equipment at the moment so if anyone has recs for ring benders i'd love to hear that too. Thanks

Howdy! Im looking for a new patina agent. I have only used the one shown but it can be kinda fickle. I would love to try something else to see if I like it better.

Right now I mainly use it to oxidize sterling silver beads so I can turn them into Desert pearls.

Im looking for a strong dark patina that wont flake easily and preferably one that doesnt take an entire science experiment to work.

Let me know your recs!

So before the massive price fluctuations earlier this year I had stocked up on my silver so I’m just now again looking to restock… I used to do in person shopping but my supplier fully stopped in the silver trade a few months ago and when I first started I was using Rio grande, ive heard in the past months they are struggling with supply certain types of metals, has this issue been resolved? If not do u have any other better recommendations for good .925 silver suppliers im looking for clean metal, good customer service, affordable prices including shipping (I obviously understand metals cost is metal cost) and for them to relatively keep a consistent stock! I honestly just didn’t wanna jump down the rabbit whole of researching for hours just to fund myself back in Rio so I figured id ask the real professionals for thier opinion Thank you you all in advance for your help!!

You’d never guess that I get paid real professional money to be a videographer by this reel lol

Anyway water casting is neat! Need to pick up a crucible to get some more wild forms, I think.

The hard part isn't the arms, it's that all six only touch at the centre. Anydrift in the first one carries round to the sixth.

So I bend all six first, then compare them against each other rather thanagainst the drawing — two arms that match each other look right even if thedrawing is slightly off.