Sunday, December 30, 2012

RESOLUTIONS

We make resolutions, and then we don't keep them.  But we try, with good intentions.  I will not promise anything.  I will try however, to do the following:

Make the blog more interesting and post more often.

Finish a piece of jewelry instead of going part way and then let it languish.

To slow down and not get ahead of myself when working on a project.  In other words, think it through.  I have a tendency to cobble things together without having a plan.  That sometimes works, but more often than not I end up with a component that didn't get the care and attention it should have had and it ends up leaving something to be desired.  Sometimes I can fix it, sometimes not, and I have to take the piece apart and start over, salvaging what I can.

Take better photographs.

Improve and customize my work space to be more complementary to my kind of work.  I have so many tools and materials which not fit into standardized drawers and other storage units that things become messy and out of place.  For an example, my hammer storage needs much to be desired.  The same is true for wire.  There's wire here, there, and over yonder.

Finish the tool making I started. A small problem with that.  The fire for tempering is out in the cold garage, my secondary studio.

Discipline myself to put a tool down in the same place when working to help in finding it when it is needed so I don't have to move other tools off or away.  Chain nose pliers go here! Flat nose pliers here! cutters go there! I'm not speaking of tool storage here, but that is also important.  When finished, there should be a place for everything and every thing in its place.

Gee, all that may be more than I can accomplish during all of 2013!

Somewhere I'll have to find time to do some more experimenting with other jewelry finishing techniques.  Among them:

Patinas other than liver of sulfur.

Enameling.

Methods of adding color to metals other than patinas and flame patina.  I have done some experimenting along those lines.

Hope all you fine folks have a great and productive new year!


2 comments:

  1. Happy New Year! Your list of resolutions could easily be my own, but this year, I'm thinking a little differently. :)

    Look forward to another year of your informative blog.

    Can you give us some advice on dapping sets? There are so many and so many price sets. So, do you know which is the best value without being rubbish? You are the man to ask, so I did. :)

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  2. Thanks, Tela. My dapping set is an inexpensive one. I got it on ebay and paid less than $50.00 for it. For the kind of work I do, guess you could call it altered metal, it works just fine. I did do some grinding on the hammering ends to smooth them down as these were badly finished. Another person I know uses the one from Harbor Freight and doesn't seem to have a problem with that set. I would say that if you want to go a little more upscale, get the one made by Pepe. Pepe makes some pretty darn good tools in the medium price range. Anymore, I tend to shy away from some of the very expensive brands because they have cut back on quality and ride along on their name to sell their product. For example, I have a top brand expensive disc cutter set that doesn't work as well as the one I have made by Pepe.
    Hope this helps. John

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