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Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 12:29:48 :
In Reply to: Master Metal Fab Question--OT posted by SUPRDUD on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 00:30:46 :
One of my tenants is a silversmith. Silver is kind of a theme in Wallace due to the silver mines, even though the silversmiths all just buy their raw materials from Rio Grand or other outside sources. He has a nice hand-cranked English roller mill for rolling out wire and sheets into various thicknesses or designs, but he doesn't roll his rings. All his work is either fabricated from stock shapes cut and bent and soldered together, or is cast. All the rings are cast, usually in one piece. He can stretch or shrink them a little by hammering on a mandrel or if it needs to go further than that by cutting out or inserting a small segment and soldering it back together. He brags about how he can get ten times as much for an ounce of silver as the mines do, but when I see how long it takes to make something decent looking, I wouldn't say it's easy money. There are a lot of steps to making a piece of jewelry, whether it's cast or fabricated, and either kind can look pretty poor if you do it badly.