Magnification Tools

Amazing how my eye wear in the studio changed over the years. I used to do everything with just some safety glasses on, no magnification needed. Stones were big, settings easy.
The more intricate my work got, the more I needed magnification. My eyes are actually still excellent and I don't need glasses or contacts for everyday normal tasks. But stone settings will turn out so much better with the right magnification.

I really started adding magnification to my tools after taking a stone setting class last February. Before that I mostly used just safety glasses for grinding and polishing work and my Optivisors with different magnification lenses for stone setting. But I got the feel that I needed more enlargement to really see whats going on with my setting. Nothing worst than having just finished ring, just to realize when taking photos that the setting is not perfect. Taking photos of ones handmade jewlery can be a real eye opener. It shows every little flaw the normal eye view can't even pick up.

I was hoping I would just get used to using a hand held loupe with 10x magnification for stone setting. That's what's taught during Blaine Lewis  Comprehensive Stone Setting class at New Approach School, a highly recommended class for anyone wanting to get better at stone setting.
But I really needed my hands free to do the actual stone setting. Using a loupe felt bothersome. Most of the magnification tools like glasses, bifocals and the likes only give a 2x to 3.5x magnification. Not bad, but not great either when dealing with stones less than 5mm dimensions, especially with fancy cuts.

Then I watched Blaine Lewis do his class tutorials with a microscope with super magnification  shown to his students on big monitors. All I wanted at this point was a microscope. So back from class I took the plunge and got a highly recommended Meiji one to test. After playing with it for a a couple days I was hooked. Such a game changer when at once you can see things at a 7x to 45x magnification.

Meiji Microscope at metal working bench. Yes, my bench is always messy.

All over sudden one can see the tiny movements the metal of heavy bezel walls makes when hitting it with a setting hammer. Flush setting small 1mm diamonds is a breeze with the right magnification. I even felt compelled to try pave settings just because I could actually see what I was doing. One can really see if a stone setting is really closed safely over the stone's girdle. This means fewer lost stones, less stone breakage during setting, quicker finished stone setting tasks. Plus more beautiful settings equals better photos and more sales in the end.

A microscope is a huge investment but I think it's money well spend. I had to also add an adjustable bracket for my bench mate to bring down the ring clamp. This keeps the right distance to the microscope and a comfortable sitting and ergonomic head position. Getting used to working with a microscope was pretty easy. I think it also improved my posture at the bench, greatly reducing any occasional back problems.

I recently added a second cheaper microscope at my wax bench. Haven't really tried it out much yet. It feels a bit more awkward to use at first, but it should get better once I figure out the right setup. I was using the one at the metal bench more and more when carving waxes and it seemed to make stone setting a lot quicker after casting. So having one at the wax bench should save more time as I don't have to move around so much. Also got an extra LED light for the Meiji from AM Scope since it was a lot cheaper than the one offered through Otto Frei or Rio . It's a lot nicer now with this adjustable ring light.

I still use my Optivisor with #5 (x2.5) and #10 (x3.5) lenses for some tasks like polishing and grinding. They work pretty good but I sometimes hate the head band thingy. Leaves me with a bad hair do after a full work day and a sweaty and dirty forehead especially in hot summer months. But they work apparently great for people who wear glasses to correct other eyesight issues and just need to add some magnification.

Wax working microscope, Optivisor, 2.5x readers, safety glasses for casting and welding.

A couple cheap +2.5 drugstore readers come in handy too for those tasks only needing some safety glasses  with minor magnification like general work with the Foredom flexshaft tools and soldering. I keep misplacing these readers, so fancy frame colors help finding them easier in my mess. I wish they would make some with glow in the dark frames for easy locating at the end of the work day.

I also have some Eschenbach glasses that I can't get used to working with. The field of vision is smaller than with the Optivisor. The 2X magnification isn't really worth it and the 16 inches working distance is too far away for me for jewelery work. Each lens has a dial that allows for adjustments and for a change in focal length, which is great but still not really useful for me. They do work great if reading a book or working on a laptop where the working distance is more constant. But I don't really need magnification for those things yet. Maybe I use them more in a couple years when my eyesight takes a plunge.

I still use some plain safety glasses at the polishing machine, dark glasses for casting and dark welding glasses for palladium soldering. All those don't have magnification.

Finding the right magnification tools can be tricky for some jewelers who have to deal with certain eye sight issues like astigmatism or nearsightedness. Testing out a lot of those really helps finding the one that feels comfortable.  

Brooch A Day, Week 2 Catchup

I took a look through my Flickr set of all my brooches so far for the Brooch a Day challenge and realized that I actually never updated the blog with the process. Time to play catch up and go back in time.

Week 2 did not have any Grasshopper programming work involved. It was all about learning more about brooch mechanism as I have never done any brooches before. I used some objects I had laying around and made them into brooches.
It came in handy that I had some failed 3D prints on hand from earlier design explorations for bracelets. This keeps it still somewhat related to the original intend of using CAD process for some of the brooch making.

Brooch #9 The Wheel Brooch

 

Those are 3D printed stainless steel miniature bracelets  on my brooch #8 magnetic pin.

I accidentally messed up the scale of these bracelet designs and they are only 1/2 the size (35mm diameter). Too small for any human hand, maybe it would fit a doll.  Rookie mistake in the virtual CAD world ;-) But perfect size for some brooches. Since they are just holding on by magnetic power the arrangement is flexible. 

Brooch #10 Bumpy Rail Brooch

One of those accidentally 1/2 sized bracelets that could be napkin holders or, well, a brooch.
3D printed stainless steel, modeled in Rhino/ T-splines. Stainless steel brooch pin and catch welded to ring. Testing out my PUK stainless steel welding settings with these brooches too. Stainless steel welds pretty nicely. The PUK even has a pre-settings for that material. Makes it easy.

Brooch #11 Rilled Pin

In this one I was using a 3d printed stainless steel bead I had designed earlier in Rhino3D/ T-splines. Perfect for a brooch design. I made a little "flower" bouquet out of some sterling silver head pins and added a thicker wire as the stem. Sterling silver was then oxidized. The 3D printed stainless steel bead is 23mm long, 12mm diameter.

Brooch #12 Rilled Slider Brooch

One more of these rilled 3D printed stainless steel bead. Here it slides and spins freely on a steel pin, which is tension set in a welded stainless steel frame. The frame was all welded with the PUK welder. As a brooch mechanism I used some SST tubing, formed catch from sheet and bent SST wire into a double pin.

The next brooch deserves it's own post. There was no CAD involved at all. But it will be the inspiration for the next weeks Grasshopper practice designs.

Ring Sizing

One of the hardest tasks when ordering an engagement ring is finding the right ring size, especially if it needs to be a surprise. I can send plastic ring sizers to those customers to at least get within a close  size range. They then have to wait until their partner is asleep and try out those sizers on her hand. If she wakes up, just come up with a cheesy line that you wanted to hold her hands because you missed her.  :) Or try to get creative and involve other family members that might be able to get that information with less suspicion. If you actually want to do it right and it's not a surprise I recommend going to a local jeweler to get professionally sized with calibrated metal sizers. All other methods do have a large margin of error.

Note that often each finger on someone’s hand has a different size and even left and right hands are different. In my case, since I am right handed, my right hand fingers are half to 1 US size larger than my left hand fingers. Don’t just assume one ring that she wears on her hand somewhere will also fit on that special ring finger. There are also multiple fancy online sizer options that have printable charts or use credit cards or driver licenses as a measuring tool like this site. Still, the margin of error is pretty big as the scale can be off when printing those sheets or trying to measure something on a screen. All the customers that told me they used these methods were often of by 1 or more sizes. Best is to get professionally sized at a store with metal ring sizer's that are similar in width as the desired ring band. Please note that even those calibrated metal ring sizers that stores and shops use vary a bit from each other. I have 3 mandrels and 2 sets of metal ring sizers and they are all slightly off from each other. Those tolerances can easily mean to get different measurement for the ring size (mostly within a 1/4 size up or down). Chances are that if one gets sized at different stores, one comes back with multiple measurements. Unfortunately there is no universal sizing method or even chart when it comes to ring sizes.
If in doubt it's best in my experience to order a ring slightly smaller (1/4 to 1/2 US size less).  It is easier to stretch a ring by hammering it on a steel mandrel or to grind some metal from the inside of the band if it's thick enough. Making a ring smaller after the fact usually requires cutting the shank and resoldering it.

Measuring tools for ring sizing

It’s not always possible to resize a ring. It has to be evaluated case by case. If the ring has no gemstones and no special texture, it’s usually not a real issue. Sizing can be done by removing or inserting a piece of the same metal in the ring shank and soldering it. For textured pieces this could be a bit trickier as it’s not always possible to reapply the same texture on the inserted metal in case the texture was done on the wax models. A seam may be visible on the cut line. A hairline seam may also be visible for ring in some alloys were the solder color does not match exactly the shade of the alloy. This happens frequently with Palladium white gold alloys and also with the new silver/palladium alloy I use. I haven't had any issues with solder matching for purer alloys such as 950 Palladium or Sterling Silver.

Once gemstones are set in the ring, and it can’t be removed, it becomes a totally different deal. Only a few stones like diamonds, sapphires and rubies without inclusions or some lab created stones can take heat from the soldering. Removing stones is often only possible for gems in prong setting as prongs can be bent slightly away from the stone to be able to get it out. Most other setting types could get destroyed easily because the metal around the stone needs to be removed from the girdle to be able to get it out.  Protecting gems in place during soldering by different types of cooling is often used in those cases but still involves risk of damage to the gem. 

Ring sizing soldering setup. The set gemstone is emerged in water while the shank gets heated to soldering temperatures. This only really works well on narrow bands when the required heat can be reached very fast. I don't have success with this method with any heavier silver shanks.

To my knowledge Platinum and Palladium rings with set stones that can't be removed, can not be soldered with the matching platinum or palladium solders as no gemstone - not even a diamond- can tolerate the high soldering temperatures of these metals. One would have to use a white gold solder which does not match in color perfectly.
Gold and silver soldering temperatures are lower. Gold rings are usually easier to size due to the properties of the metal. Sterling silver gemstone rings are very difficult to size as the silver has a high conductivity and it’s very hard to get the solder to a flow point without overheating the gems. When purchasing sterling silver rings make sure a person gets the correct size. When resizing needs to be done, depending on how the rings were made, in some cases resizing will cost more than the ring is worth.

Stone set rings may also get sized using a laser welder, as it does not heat the entire ring during the sizing. This is also a alternative for stone set palladium or platinum rings. But not many small jewelry artists have access to those very expensive tools. It sometimes can be done in a jewelry store that specializes in jewelry repairs. It will still cost time and money. I do work with a laser welding specialist in downtown LA in those cases, he can size stone set silver, gold and palladium rings for me at a extra cost. Sizing the custom silver/palladium alloy can be accomplished with a laser welder too. But it's not an easy alloy to size as it's not malleable and somewhat brittle and can't be easily stretched or shrunk like the more malleable gold alloys.

Resizing more than 1 full US size up or down can destroy the structural integrity of a ring especially if the ring has stone settings. Sizing can introduce too much stress in the setting and the stone, resulting in cracks or gems falling out of the setting. In such cases the rings will have to be completely redone to the correct size. If unsure about a right ring size, check with the artist before ordering if resizing can be done, what costs apply or if exchanges are offered. Or better get the correct ring size before ordering.

Please note that ring comfort depends also on the shape and width of the ring. Wider bands tend to feel tighter than narrower ones of the same size. Same goes for stacked rings that all together will end of fitting like a wide ring. If you size a finger with narrow ring sizers like the plastic one's from my shop, then a wide band made for that finger will often need to be a little larger in size in order to fit the same. How much larger depends on the person, but an 1/8 to a 1/2 size is common. For very wide rings (10mm and wider) some people need to go 1/2 size up or even more.   The right ring size depends also on personal preference. Some people prefer a tight fit others like it loose just shy of being able to fling the ring off. Heavy rings often feel tighter than lighter rings. Top heavy rings with large gemstone settings high up on a narrow band often should fit tighter to avoid the setting from sliding from side to side. It's a hard thing to get right especially if the knuckles of a finger are actually the widest part.

To convert sizes from other international measuring systems I recommend this handy site.
Here are a few steps to make your measurement more accurate:

• When measuring, keep in mind that each finger could have a different size, so don't presume that a ring that fits your left ring finger will also fit your right ring finger or vice versa.
• Measure when your hands are warm, not cold.
• Make sure the measurement you choose easily fits over your knuckle.

If for any reason a ring you ordered does not fit, please contact me and we will work something out. It will be evaluated on a case by case basis what the best way is to make it a well fitting ring. I usually do one ring sizing for free if needed plus material cost if a larger size is required.



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