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Old April 26th 08, 05:21 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Peter W.. Rowe,
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Posts: 355
Default Jay Whaley's New Studio and first Workshop.

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:06:25 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Abrasha
wrote:


A rolling mill workshop is like teaching people how to open a banana.


perhaps, but consider:

Perusing the archives of the Orchid list, one finds many many postings
pertaining to rolling mills, from which mill to buy, how to service and adjust,
how to care for them, and how to avoid damaging them. Knowing, for example,
that some things should not go through a rolling mill or the rolls will be
damaged, isn't always obvious to beginners. Neither are things like knowing how
much to tighten the rolls between passes (which can differ between metals) or
how often to anneal, or even how to tell when the metal is reduced enough that
it now must be annealed (again, different for different metals) And that just
takes us through the basic use of reducing the thickness of sheet metal. Proper
use in making wire is another few minutes of instruction that beginners might
need. And then you get to the interesting stuff. How to forge a taper, or how
to taper down the center of a section of stock that will be turned into a ring
shank, and end up with the right length, thus reducing the amount of metal you'd
have to file off of a straight blank to get that tapered shank... How to
calculate the required starting square dimensions when you've got a required
rectangle wire you want. Pattern rolls, Roll printing, in all it's myriad
variations, do's and dont's, etc etc. And how 'bout the shortcuts you can use a
mill for in fold forming, or turning a straight strip of metal into a curved one
by making the rolls non-parallel...

The list goes on. If you're starting with beginners, I can easily see how you
could turn this into a full day's workshop before everyone has gotten it all...

And remember. Even that bananna has it's variations. yeah, eat it raw if you
like, but how 'bout fried and caramelized with a bit of brandy, covered in ice
cream or other fresh fruit, or...? And Not just for eating. Ask any porn
star. And don't forget to warn package handlers about stowaway dangerous
spiders. Oh, and don't step on that peel... I'll bet there are whole books out
there on banannas...

Cheers

Peter
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