Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Acquired a few used tools, a cabbing arbor, a 10" trim saw. Once it warms up in April maybe I will put things together. Ive got a stainless serving table from a friend at the resturant will find a way to incorporate that into something useful also.
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am Posts: 1322 Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
I think you'll find that stainless steel table nice you end up with a lot of water anytime you're working around cabin and faceting in publishing so would be nice to have a table that can stand
Sounds like you're headed to the point we're gonna be able to start cutting and polishing things I wish you luck with it
I wish he had a club in your area something like a 10 inch trim Saul is very very nice to have this set up on him is fairly basic but there is some things that you need to get right otherwise you're gonna end up messing up your blades I'm basically it's having to do with making sure your piece of rock is firmly clamped
There's also some basic machine adjustments to make sure your blade is perpendicular to the sliding tray easily done specially if you have a dial indicator butter which is something I'd recommend you get it just makes the alignment of the machines in the maintenance a lot easier
Good luck and let us know when you cut your first lab and polish polish your first cab
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Wilson, as you know it's always something else first. But after raiding the shed at the farm for 1725rpm motors and belts. I had a few old woodworking tools collecting dust and mice. I decided before I do anything but set up stations, I'm putting in a header with valves for a lubricator pump right into the stainless table. It's got a 3 section roll top with the recessed tray for the salad bar. Looks like a oil reservoir to me. Remove the cooling unit from below( it doesn't work) and install the pump in its place. Run 3 stations off the one pump since I doubt I can run more than one at a time.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
So here we are another year completed. Hard to believe I started this just 2 years ago. A present for my Valentine, Sally. We grow with knowledge of gems and rocks, and streamline our plans for moving the little business forward. It's getting closer, with my GG degree only one class from completion. The shop, well it has taken a radical turn from initial plans of new equipment to a small collection of well used tools. So go the ups and downs of cash flow in a new business. But still moving forward. We may have saved my son's welding business but it has taken its toll. Swallowing huge amounts of cash and time. Retirement seems like a huge black hole with everything invested in the boys. Lends new purpose to completing this little project. I may rename its aspect of sweat equity and call it blood equity. The toughest thing I'm finding is the actual design of things to produce. I come up with great concepts, but getting them to turn out on paper is most difficult. That translation from my head to communicable design for someone else to see. Wow that's a trick. Hey, the sketch book has evolved from stick figures, to cave paintings, to geodesic designs. I can't figure out why I can make what I want but can't sketch it out first. Shouldn't that work the other way? Maybe I will resort to templates and make notes for modifications. Probably work better than my "Monet" cave sketchings. Looking back I would have to say it's not where I expected to be at the start, but it's where I should be. The education first thanks to all of you was the best choice. The change in funding changed little in the shop. The tools, old as they are still do the same job. Maybe not as effectively but gets it done just the same. This R&D stage may begin to produce some items by the end of the year but for now it's still about learning the business, the processes of design, the marketing and sales of the product. So far so good. The project lives on
When it comes to not being able to draw out a design, I find it helps to remember what Benvenuto Cellini said 400 or so years ago. "There are goldsmiths who draw, and there are goldsmiths who don't draw, both are good, although I consider those who draw slightly the better". It is thirty years since I read the passage, but I think I have got the sense of it.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Things moving along slowly, well only due to weather. -18 wind chills today. Work in it all day don't have much desire to work in the garage when I'm done. Acquired a solid hardwood desk with drawers on one side. A little modification and a free jewelrs bench. Picked up a 10" piece of railroad track from a scrap pile. Yep, anvil. Things just falling in place. Picked up a set of practice stones from Barbara in prep for my last class from GIA. Going to follow Starla's videos and work my way through my instruments. Get this GG degree done before this oil patch dies completely.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
A bit more progress in the shop. Built wall benches insulated walls, and ran electrical. Now I have 15' of bench on the west wall and 8' on the north wall. Decided to cut down the top of the stainless salad bar and Tig a new top in place for a 8 ' rolling wet station for my saw and cab machine. Now I wait for $$ to purchase the SS sheet. In the mean time I will work on the jewelers table.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Got the go ahead from the Boss "Sally" I can start my last class of colored stone ID in a month or so. And take the lab in the fall! $2800 and $1660 respectively. Which isn't so bad it's the flights and week of hotels to go with that! Start shopping now I guess. The shop is still in a state of total disaster. Benches got laminated but I still haven't done the trim work. The Jewelers bench still firmly buried under 300 lbs of welding rods. The stainless table isn't going to work out so I will have to change plans again maybe just build some angle iron stands and call it good. Been working on contacts through Facebook. Finding dealers for stones and making solid relationships with different people connected throughout the trade. I still can't get past my distrust of the Afghan region dealers. Good looking material just. Can't do it. Maybe one day. Working 12 hr days again, I heard this rumor once that people work 8 hr days! How do they get anything done? Anyway the project lives on yet another day.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Sorted through the last of the sapphire gravel and the total to date is 300 stones for heat treatment and cutting. This is a 2year accumulation and now armed with a better understanding of what qualities are needed to pass for cutting I feel like I should get close to 250 to the cutting table. Cost for this? Rough estimate is $10 per stone. This will represent my first investment in sales inventory. The good news is it will take 6-9 months for return allowing for more time and development with the rest of things. I did get 240vac outlets and a expanded breaker box installed in the garage. Slow and sporadic progress.
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Have recently picked up a few odds and ends for the gem ID course. The latest was a UV lamp. The school has one for sale at just over a grand! Ouch, so I did my research and found a company that sells a SW LW UV lamp that puts out 11 watts 254nm/375nm bulbs. A savings of $1150.00 I like that!!
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
Spectral absorption is kicking my ass. Why don't we have a tool the size of binoculars? This pen sized idea of tools is absurd! Dichroscope, Spectroscopes, really? Get bigger or go home. Sheeze!
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm Posts: 576 Location: N Dakota
My studies are moving forward with well. Scheduled my gem ID lab for April. In the mean time struggling through the first few practical 20 stone courses. Getting better but still not completing ID worksheets correctly. Leaving things out, adding things in, forgetting procedures. The labs should help with this. A chance to fully concentrate on stones for a week without interruption. For now still struggling through some instruments adding some filter and changing lighting, tweaking my equipment and process as I go. Long cold days of work leave me exhausted and push my study to the weekends. And so it goes.
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am Posts: 1322 Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
Dan&Sally wrote:
Spectral absorption is kicking my ass. Why don't we have a tool the size of binoculars? This pen sized idea of tools is absurd! Dichroscope, Spectroscopes, really? Get bigger or go home. Sheeze!
I do not know if you have the book "Guide to Affordable Gemology" by W. Wm Hanneman, Ph.D.
In it he has plans for building some of these tools. You can then make the size you want..
The dichroscope uses optical grade calcite, you can get a pretty big piece of that and make one as big as you want..... you may be able to fit it onto a binocular tube
I picked up a piece at the local rock swap for $10 that would fill a 1 1/2 inch pvc tube.... (just as a size ref)
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