back at the bench

I've been back at the bench for the past week.  After the first awkward day things came back to me pretty quickly.  Soldering seems to be coming back rather slowly though.  I was gone over 5 years total but it has been even longer since I did many jewelry repairs with the torch since every place I have worked since 2004 has had a laser welder.  There is a laser welder at my new job, but still the torch is better for some things.

The only stone setting I have done so far has been prong setting two round faceted stones and bezel setting a faceted stone.

The prong setting felt very awkward.  Felt like I was doing it for the first time.  I just couldn't remember how I used to bur a level seat for the stones. In the end they were set ok.

I didn't do the entire bezel setting.  My boss started it and had the bezel partially hammered down before he had to do something else and I took over.  I finished hammering it and cleaned it up.  The bezel setting felt ok, aside from being a bit nervous cause the stone was a tanzanite.

I am going to try to make 2017 about learning and improving.  Especially my bench jeweler skills.  I am hoping to improve my stone setting beyond where I was before I went to Korea.  I could do most settings well enough, but some I was not confident with, especially channel setting and pave.  I had learned how to do both of them but I never had much practice.