On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:59:40 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry "William Black"
wrote:


I looked some of the stuff up on the web.

Some of it is remarkably ugly, if novel.

A lot of it looks like something from a Birmingham School of Jewellery 'End
of course' show that is more for looking at, showing off professional
design skills and getting a job than actually selling.

That's a pretty belittling set of statements, sir, from someone who apparently
hasn't seen, on the web or otherwise, good examples of the kind of jewelry that
can be made with these methods. Before you pooh pooh it too much, consider
that those people who do this really well, create work that is quite sought
after, and which brings high prices, and high praise from the critics and judges
who see it, and disparaging comments usually only from those competitors who's
work cannot compete... I'll assume that your statements arise not from such
negative bias, but just from not having had the opportunity to see, and
preferably hold in the hand, good jewelry made this way. It can be quite
exceptional, and often the designs do not lend themselves to being made any
other way.

Some of it's bent tube that can be bent using any reasonable tube bending
process.

If it's bent tube, it's not anticlastic raising. Anticlastic raising is a
process of turning strip shaped sheet metal, often tapered in width and
sometimes in thickness, into a channel shape which also curves along it's
length. Similar to a bent tube, but not closed over into a tube, and both the
tubular or channel shape, and the long axis curves are generated at the same
time. The difference may not seem extreme, but it gives rise to quite
different results. The process can, if one wishes, be continued until the
channel closes over into a bent tube, but usually, it is not. The subtleties
that make this sort of work as interesting as it is often do not show up well in
web based photos. Hold it in the hand, and you appreciate it's unique
qualities. For one thing, it can be very light, springy, and flexible, while
remaining remarkably strong, a function of the various curves being generated in
part by the natural forces/stresses built up in the metal during working. A
plain bent tube, flexed, often is prone to kink or permanently distort. An
anticlast will just spring right back into it's original shape, if it's been
left reasonably work hardened. And as I noted, a great deal of this work is
done with tapered shapes, not straight tube. Again, not as simple as plain bent
tube as you assume.

That doesn't by the way, mean that this is some sort of difficult arcane skill.
Just the opposite. It's a set of specific techniques/ methods and tools tuned
to those methods, that is fairly easily mastered at the basic levels. As with
most basic techniques, doing it really well is another matter entirely, needing
practice and some aesthetic maturity to design a beautiful and graceful form.

People in the UK do rather tend to buy jewellery because they like it rather
than because it looks striking and unusual.


I beg to differ. People in the UK buy jewelry for the same reasons anyone else
does. First, they like it for some reason. But the reasons they like it are
personal and varied. Some people will buy ordinary mass produced stuff just
like what everyone else buys. Some will buy things to project an image of
affluence. Some will buy things because they actually are different or
striking, just as with fashions. European jewelry consumers, in my experience,
tend to be actually MORE daring, on the whole, than the average american jewelry
consumer, in part due to the fact that jewelry training in the UK and europe as
a whole, produces art school or trade school graduates somewhat better able to
hand make competent well designed and unique jewelry. The averge quality level
of the workmanship to be found in commercial jewelry in the EU tends to be
somewhat higher than in the states, and consumers have learned to appreciate
and demand it. Along with that higher level, and greater frequency, of hand
made jewelry to be found commercially, you also as a matter of course also see a
greater percentage of work that can be described as innovative and unusual. That
doesn't mean it's all that way, of course. Mediocrity rears it's head
everywhere. But my own observations when abroad are that jewelry in europe
tends to be at a higher average level than in the states, or for that matter, in
most of the rest of the world.

As for the wavy stake, the armourers one is about fifteen inches long, two
inches wide and is often the subject of unsavoury jokes involving young
ladies.

Yeah, well these are smaller, and generally used either by young (and old)
ladies who're making beautiful jewelry with them, or trying to, or by gents who
are not armourers, and who hopefully have a bit higher respect for the ladies.

However, it would not surprise me if, though the scale of the tools is
different, the mechanical uses of the stakes, ie the types of forming they are
used for, had some strong similarities in the geometric operations being
performed on the stakes (anticlastic curves), even if the end forms are very
different.

Peter