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.                                

Back in the USA

Monday November 28th I left Seoul and came back to the US for good. "For good" for now anyway. Although I don't know what other job I could get abroad except teaching English, and I'm done with that.

My friend owns a jewelry store in Iowa and had offered me a job when I return so I started working there Friday (12/2).  I had wanted to take at least a week to organize my stuff and clean and organize my studio, but my friend was backed up with work and wanted me to start ASAP.  

It felt a bit awkward at first being back at the bench.  But it was feeling much more comfortable by the end of the day. 

Instagram

I've been on Instagram a few years but just within the past year or so I started posting much more.  Here I am:

https://www.instagram.com/jonmryan/

What I have been doing

It's been a while since I posted.  I didn't have much to say and eventually pretty much stopped even thinking about posting here.  All I did in Korea was CAD work, and that's not really something I have any interest writing about.

Right now I'll just briefly write what has been going on in my life...

At the end of February I finished teaching in Korea and went back to the US.  I spent a total of 5 years teaching English there.  It was a great experience.  I was really sad to leave, but I was just feeling it was time to move on and get back to my metalwork.

After going to the US I traveled a bit there, to San Diego, New York and Washington DC.  April 19th I went to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago, Via de la Plata route.  I walked about 1000 km (620 miles?), from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela.  It took about 2 months.  After that I kept traveling... Portugal, Morocco, Turkey, Dubai, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, Japan, and now, as I write this, Korea.  November 28th I'll go back to the US.  If everything goes as planned I will be working at my friends jewelry store in Iowa.

I have a lot more to write about these things I've been doing, and a lot of photos I want to post. I also have a lot of drafts I never finished which I plant to post eventually.

cat earrings

I was looking through this blog yesterday and today and realized there are a lot of things I never got around to posting.  Below are some cat earrings I made around the end of last year.  I had Shapeways print them in wax and my friend in the US cast them in silver and finished them.  I also had them print some in plastic and in steel as a pendant. 

Zbrush pearl pendant

This is a pendant I made in Zbrush earlier this year.  The sphere in the middle is a pearl.  I will definitely make this one once I am back in the US.  This design has a slight problem I don't like, but other than that, it is one of those designs I made and didn't think much about it at the time, then I looked at it months later and realized I really liked it. 

January lock pick

I forgot to post this one.  This is the lock pick I made in the US in January.  Handle is ebony.  This is the only one I finished during my trip.  I was very busy and tired during the trip and I just didn't want to spend my time in the studio.