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Please Don’t Expect Me to Teach You for Free

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Why do strangers expect me to share my time and knowledge with them for free?

I’ve been making jewelry for a bunch of years now and have expanded my skillset from the wire-framed cabochon pendants I began with to all kinds of silversmithing work. Along the way, I developed my skills by watching videos, attending hands-on classes, and practicing what I’ve learned. I’ve also invested literally thousands of dollars in equipment and materials.

This is not a “side gig,” as someone once suggested. It’s a real business with income and expenses. I was on track to be profitable (after all that training and equipment) in 2020 — until COVID hit. I’ll likely turn a profit this year.

Understand that I am self employed with several sources of income. Jewelry making is one of them. Making YouTube videos is another. Flying helicopters during the summer months is yet another. So when someone expects me to share my hard-earned skills with them without compensation, I bristle.

Getting My Skills

My jewelry making skillset began through watching a few videos about wire-wrapping stones. In hindsight, I realize that those videos did more harm than good. One of them actually recommended using hardware store pliers, which have ridges for gripping that seriously scratch metal. The finished pieces I created looked just as amateurish as the pieces in the videos. I fooled myself into being satisfied with them.

Montana Agate first Piece
The first true wire-framed pendant I made in sterling silver. Many thanks to Dorothy for sharing her knowledge with me.

But I was lucky in that I had a friend who did much nicer work and volunteered to teach me. We sat down together and I made my first piece in real silver using her technique. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. We were in Quartzsite and she was renting a far-less-than-perfect single-wide mobile home in a trailer park while working for a lapidary who was set up at Desert Gardens. We did it at the kitchen table one evening with a lamp brought over to provide the light we needed. She was very patient. That first pendant took two hours to make.

Bumble Bee Jasper
I made this Bumble Bee Jasper pendant this past weekend while sitting in my booth at the art show; it sold the same day. I can now make a pendant like this in about 30 minutes if I’m not interrupted.

I was happy with my first effort, but looking at it now reminds me of how far I’ve come. My style has changed significantly over the years. I now wrap all of my bails for a cleaner (in my opinion) look and work hard to cover the stone as little as possible. I’ve made (and sold) hundreds of these pendants over the past three and a half years and I’ve since moved on to other things.

I should make something very clear here. I never asked Dorothy to teach me how to make pendants. She offered to do it. She wouldn’t take my money, either — even though she’d provided the sterling silver for that first pendant. But I wasn’t satisfied to let it rest. I called up Rio Grande, the jewelry supply company she introduced me to, and asked them to put $50 on her account for her to use the next time she bought something. A sort of gift certificate. Months later, she found that credit and thanked me for it. But the way I see it, I still owe her.

The trouble with wire work is that it’s seen as an inferior form of jewelry making. I’m not sure why. While some wire work — like what I’d started doing on my own — can be pretty crappy, there’s other work that is far more polished and professional. Still, when you apply for a juried art show and the only thing you’ve got to show is wire work, prejudices keep you out, no matter how polished it looks. I needed to take my jewelry making to the next step.

That said, I signed up for a 3-day intensive metalworking class at the Tacoma Metal Arts Center. This was not a cheap undertaking. The class itself cost $375 and I had to get myself over to Tacoma, which is about a 4-hour drive. I also had to get lodging for myself; I lucked out there because they let me park my truck camper in their back parking area every night. I’ve since taken two other classes through TMAC, including a blacksmithing class in Eatonville.

Hammered Earrings
These silver earrings are entirely handmade, right up to the ear wire. (Only the beads are purchased.) I started with silver sheet metal and cut the earring and “washer” shapes. Next came hammering and stamping the texture. Then I applied a patina and used various tools to rub it off the high points. Finally, I created the ear wire with the quartz and silver beads.

I learned a ton there although few of the skills were polished enough to use right afterwards. I had to practice. I started producing different styles of earrings, using the metal forming skills I learned. Soldering, at first, was a stumbling block, but I (mostly) got past it. I began making tab-mounted, then prong mounted, and finally bezel set cabochon pendants.

I also decided to take the deep dive into jewelry making by investing in equipment. A flex shaft. A rolling mill. A table-top metal shear. Hammers and dapping sets. Mandrels. A vice. A grinder. Bench blocks. Finishing tools. Soldering station equipment. The list — and the related costs — go on and on. But if there’s one smart thing my wasband ever said (again and again), it’s “Every job is easy when you have the right tools.” I invested in the tools I needed to explore my design ideas and get the job done.

And I took more classes. In January/February 2020, before COVID hit hard, I signed up for 5 Vivi Magoo classes at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. That meant an investment in close to $2,000 on just skills. And $250 for a site in a campground nearby — rather than the $250/night cost of a room at the hotel where the classes were being held. I learned more advanced techniques by actually doing them. The skills I brought home enabled me to come up with new designs and take my work to the next level. I was able to get into most of the juried art shows I applied to — the ones in Palm Springs remain elusive — and to sell my work at shows and in galleries.

Still, I continue to this day to take classes — I just signed up for one in Tucson this coming February — and to hone my skills with new designs.

Sharing My Knowledge

About two years ago, before COVID hit, I did some one-on-one and classroom training. In most cases, it was project based: I’d teach people how to make something I made, including wire-framed pendants, chain bracelets and necklaces, and a variety of metal formed earrings.

Understand that I’ve always been paid to share my knowledge with others. Whether I did one-on-one training at Pybus Market when I sold pendants there or taught small groups at a booth in Quartzsite, AZ in the winter or did classroom training at Gallery One in Ellensburg, I was compensated for my time and the materials I provided to class attendees.

The only exception is when one of my neighbors wanted a copper cuff bracelet like the ones I make out of copper pipe. I invited her over to my shop and the two of us hammered out a pair of bracelets. She is my friend and she takes care of my cats and chickens when I travel. It was a pleasure to be able to teach her how to make her own bracelet and I think she values it more than if I just gave her one. There’s something special about having a hand in making something you wear.

A Stranger Emails

In an effort to generate some off-season revenue before I head south for the winter — as I normally do — I placed a few Craig’s List ads offering my services as a jewelry maker to teach people how to make some of the things I make and sell. The ads go under the heading of “Learn to Make these Earrings!” etc. They basically show a photo or two of the project item and skills they’ll learn while making it. There’s a cost with a discount if more than one person attends. I’d link to them, but chances are they will have expired by the time most people read this. Here’s a screen shot of the start of one:

Learn to Make Earrings
This is the first pair of earrings I designed and made; ironically, they remain one of my most popular styles.

I also have an ad for general jewelry making where I offer to teach anything I know using any of my equipment for $50/hour/person with a 2-hour minimum. This is for someone who has an idea of what they want to learn but doesn’t necessarily want to do one of my projects.

On Thursday, I got an email forwarded by Craigs List, referring to one of my project-based ads:

Hi:

Saw your post on CL, and I watched your YT video, nice shop.

I am semi-retired and live in [redacted] and process roughs from a local source. I would like to learn how to make jewelry, and I also interested in perhaps contracting with you for some consulting.

In my garage/shop, I have a commercial grade vibratory tumbler, and 3 large rotary tumblers, a 6-inch Hi-Tech saw, and flat lap, a Gryphon router, and the necessary tools, and most of the supplies for making jewelry. Oh yeah, and about 400 lbs of roughs, and about 200 lbs of finished stones (I’ve been tumbling since 2016).

I also had a professional website built in January of 2021 but I have not really given it the focus it needs, in part because I want to add jewelry to the product line.
[redacted]

While I am a life-long (closet) artist, my devotion has been to pencil & paper, otherwise I was a [redacted] in [redacted] for [redacted].

I want help organizing my shop, so that I can make jewelry here in [redacted]. I have also been toying with the idea of hiring a part-time employee to make jewelry from my processed stones, and would enjoy a second opinion.

Best regards,

[redacted name and phone number]

(By the way, here’s the shop video he’s referring to. It gives you some idea of my investment in equipment.)

I have redacted some identifying information because it’s not my purpose to identify and/or shame this person. It doesn’t really matter who it is, does it? I’ll just point out here that, like me, his primary career was not in any way related to art or jewelry making. This is something pretty new for him.

I looked at his website. It was very pretty. It had a lot of pictures of tumbled stones and a lot of the usual nonsense about spirituality and vibrations and the meanings of rocks. It did not seem to actually sell anything.

I re-read his message. He is basically a rock tumbler — he polishes rough stones by putting them in a barrel with different grits and letting the barrel run for weeks on end. Anyone can tumble rocks — hell, Amazon sells a kit that’ll get a 10-year-old kid started in no time for just $59. The only thing that impressed me about his equipment was that he was set up to tumble a lot of rocks.

(Maybe I should mention here that you can buy tumbled rocks by the handful or little bagful from a lot of gift shops out west for $5. Here’s 2 pounds of the stuff with a book about rocks for $20.)

I don’t use tumbled rocks in my work. The only stones I use are cabochons, which require different equipment and a lot more time and effort to make. Cabochons have flat backs and domed fronts. They’re often in regular shapes, like ovals and teardrops, but can be more randomly shaped, depending on the skills and artistic ideas of the lapidary who makes them.

I thought for a while about how I would answer this guy’s message. I even toyed with the idea of hooking him up with someone who did the kind of wire wrap work I started with. But in the end I decided to give him what he seemed to be asking for: advice.

I’m sorry it took me so long to respond. I was busy this weekend selling my work at Art in the Park in Leavenworth.

I don’t think I can help you. I don’t use tumbled stones in my work at all. I use cabochons, which are best for the kind of stone setting I do.

As for an opinion: if you hired someone to make jewelry for you, the money you pay that person would have to be added to the cost of the jewelry, along with the materials used to make the jewelry.

You have to consider how much you could sell the jewelry for. Have you visited shops selling the kind of jewelry you want to make? Have you seen the prices on that jewelry? Can you discern whether it’s actually selling at those prices?

As you may have already surmised, having a “professional website” does not mean you’ll be able to sell a lot of product. Everyone has a website these days. You’d do better attending art or craft shows or setting up wholesale or consignment accounts. All that costs money, too. And, after spending a total of 30 hours in Leavenworth this weekend, with six hours of commuting and the cost of the booth fee, my tent, and display equipment to factor in, I can assure you that shows take a lot of time, energy, and money to sell at. Wholesale accounts expect to pay 50% of retail; consignment these days wants 35% to 40% of the selling price. Selling costs are real and need to be figured into any calculation.

Is the selling price minus cost of sales and cost of creation worthwhile for you?

These are the things you need to think objectively about. I hope this has been helpful to you.

Apparently, I misunderstood what he wanted. He didn’t want “a second opinion,” which I read as advice. He replied within 24 hours:

Thank you for your response. The business part I understand, the mechanics of jewelry making is my present interest.

Like yourself, I also do shows. I’ll be at the [redacted] Farmers Market this [redacted]. I do it because it’s a great chance to interact with the community, and I am test-marketing new products, some of which I purchase from Amazon, and resell.

I do have a rock saw, a sander and dop station, and can make cabochons myself.

However to speed things up, I’m in the process of determining whether I want a Cab King or a 6-inch Covington combo unit. I realize the lead times on these are significant but I am not deterred.

So, with that said, would consider teaching me how to make jewelry?

Regards,

[redacted]

Whoa. There was a lot to unpack there.

I bristled big time when I read, “like yourself, I do shows.” (And it wasn’t the grammar that got me.) He has no fucking idea what “doing shows” is all about if he’s limited to a 4-hour local farmer’s market. Has he carted a tent, leg weights, tables, table coverings, displays, etc. all over the southwest, spending hours to set up and tear down booths at venues in three (so far) different states? Has he dealt with trying to sell inside a tent in the cold or heat or rain? Having to go to the bathroom when there’s no one around to watch your merchandise while you wait in line at a port-a-potty? Has he even dealt with the jurying process, paying a fee just to see if his work is good enough to get into a show?

Okay, fine. But then there’s the farmers’ market itself. I’d been talking to a customer about that particular farmers’ market over the weekend. The customer suggested it to me. I tried to kindly explain why I wasn’t interested, focusing on the fact that setting up my booth for a 4-hour event was just not practical. The real reason was the fact that most farmers’ markets are not juried — that means there’s no assurance that I’d be showing my work with other people selling real art. You might think that’s a good thing, but when you’re trying to sell silver and gemstone pendants for $59 each and sterling silver earrings for $39 a pair, it really isn’t good to be among people selling junk jewelry for a lot less money.

And then there was his admission that he buys stuff on Amazon and sells it at the farmers’ market. Holy shit. That is a mortal sin in the world of art shows. I guess it’s okay if you just want to turn a few bucks, but if you want to be and represent yourself as an artist? My opinion of him dropped a few levels when I read that.

And I became very glad I didn’t waste my time at that farmers’ market.

As for buying a Cab King (which I own) or Covington Combo Unit and thinking you can make great cabochons cost effectively right out of the gate, I can tell you from experience that it just isn’t going to happen. When I make my own cabochons — which I occasionally do — I spend roughly an hour or more of time on every single one of them. I have come to realize that my time is worth a lot more than I could get for it by making cabochons, so I’ve decided to simply buy most of the cabochons I use. My collection is quite extensive at this point, with over 800 stones from all over the world, and I have no trouble selling them for considerably more than their cost on the rare instances when someone wants to buy one. My art is in the jewelry I make — not the raw materials I make it with.

Anyway, I was able to answer his request with a much shorter email. After all, it seemed that he wanted me to teach him how to make jewelry. Sure, I could do that:

Yes, I have a Craig’s List ad that offers that service.
https://wenatchee.craigslist.org/art/d/malaga-learn-to-make-fine-jewelry/7383971485.html

I can basically teach how to make almost anything that I make.

Maria

The link would take him to my ad about teaching jewelry making for $50/hour with a 2-hour minimum. If he wanted me to teach him how to make jewelry, he, like almost everyone else I’d taught over the past few years, would have to open his wallet and pay me for my time, knowledge, and equipment.

That was three days ago. I’m still waiting for his response.

Isn’t It Worth Something?

This is the same crap I’ve been dealing with for years in all of my freelance work: writing books and articles, flying helicopters, editing video, making jewelry. I have skills and equipment — sometimes very costly equipment — do you know what costs to buy and maintain a helicopter? — and someone expects me to share these things for free.

These are the tools I use to make a living. Any job I do requires my skills and equipment and the most valuable thing I have to offer: my time. Why the hell should I be expected to give this stuff away? To a stranger, no less?

In hindsight, I’m sorry I spent so much time answering his original email message. I gave him information based on my experience and I used my time to share it with him. What the hell is wrong with me? Why didn’t I realize from the get-go that he was just another person trying to squeeze something of value out of me, likely for free?

Anyway, I don’t expect to hear from him again, unless he’s going to try to trade me training time for some of his rocks.

I bet you can guess how that suggestion would go with me.

First Art Show of the Season

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Surprisingly successful.

This past weekend was my first art show of the season. It’s at a venue which is usually good for me, but this time, it was surprisingly good. I thought I’d blog a bit about it.

But before I go into a report of this past weekend’s art show, let me begin by explaining how I sell my work. (You know me; there’s always a back story.)

My sales channels

I sell most of the jewelry I make in three different channels:

  • My Art Show Booth
    My art show booth as it appeared this past weekend in Leavenworth. I was fortunate to have an end spot and be open on three sides.

    Art Shows. This accounts for far more than half of my sales, but it’s the hardest work I do. I (normally) pay a free up front for booth space and then, on the day of the show, arrive early with a 10×10 foot tent, tables, table covers, signage, and merchandise displays. I set everything up — it takes roughly 90 minutes — placing my work as artistically and practically as I can. Then I sit in the booth all day — sometimes for as many as five days in a row — to sell what I’ve brought, make more inventory (when possible), and take/make orders for custom items. Then, at the end of the show, I pack everything back up. The benefit: I (normally) get to keep 100% of the selling price for each item.

  • Wholesale and Consignment Sales. This accounts for maybe 15% of my sales and involves a lot less work — but at a cost. My wholesale price is 50% off the retail price; consignment fees are typically 35% to 40%. Even though it costs more, I prefer wholesale sales — once an item is sold, I can pretty much cross it off my inventory and forget about it. (The exception is the trade-in policy I offer for my wholesale clients; if something doesn’t sell in their shop in 6 to 18 months, I allow them to trade it in for another item.) Consignment is a royal pain in the ass. Not only am I letting a consignment shop hold onto my inventory (so I can’t sell it myself), but I need to keep track of all that stuff. And if an item is lost through theft at their shop, I’m pretty much screwed. Or if they go out of business while they have my stock, I have to worry about getting it back. Needless to say, I really don’t do much on consignment. What’s nice about these channels, however, is that they do often lead to a regular stream of sales with monthly income. So there’s that.
  • My Online Store. This accounts for another 10% of my sales. Right now, I’m using Etsy, but I hope to switch to a more professional solution soon. Etsy takes a small cut of each sale — it’s less than 10% (unless the sale is related to a special ad they’ve placed) — so it isn’t the cost that bothers me. It’s being in an online retail space with people selling cheap, imported junk that they’re trying to pass off as their own work. The only thing that keeps me with Etsy is their integrated shipping feature, which not only makes it easy to ship to addresses all over the world, but gives me a discount on USPS postage costs.

The rest of my sales are face-to-face to friends and acquaintances. That’s a tiny percentage of the total.

This Weekend’s Show

This past weekend I was at Leavenworth Art in the Park. This is a weekly art show in the center of town that has been fine-tuned over the past year for COVID. Right now, it’s operating with only 15 artist vendors in widely spaced outdoor booths; when restrictions ease a bit more, I suspect it’ll go back to its previous capacity which was about 20.

Art in the Park
With spacing for COVID, booths are able to be open on all sides.

Leavenworth, Washington, is a small town in the foothills to the Cascade Mountains. It’s a gorgeous location, nestled near mountains that remain snow-capped for much of the year. Its Bavarian Theme is what brings tourists in all summer long. The town also has (or had before COVID) lots of festivals, including a three week long Oktoberfest and big Christmas celebrations. The area has tons of hiking, white water rafting, camping, and other outdoor activities. It’s a nice place to visit, although admittedly a bit too touristy in town for my taste.

Leavenworth, WA
Downtown Leavenworth, WA was completely redone years ago to require Bavarian style architecture. One of the nice things about COVID — there are silver linings if you look for them — is that it got the town to close down the main street to vehicle traffic to make room for outdoor dining.

Elk horns
One of the draws to Leavenworth is entertainment, like this elk horn group. I shot this photo from my booth; it was very close to where the entertainment was.

I started showing/selling my work at Art in the Park in 2019. I attend on a limited basis because my primary work, which is cherry drying with my helicopter, requires me to be close to the helicopter in the Wenatchee area from roughly June 1 to August 15 every summer.

In a way, my limited time there is a good thing. Leavenworth is 50 miles from my home and the days there are long: 9 AM to 6 PM. Add that to my one hour (each way) commute and I’m looking at 11 hours. Spring and early autumn can be cold, summer can be hot. Parking is a pain in the ass. There are long lines at restaurants and, often, for the restrooms.

The reward of being there, however, is great sales. Folks who come to Leavenworth come to be entertained and to spend money. They shop in town and at the Art Show. They eat and drink in countless restaurants and bars. They stay in local hotels. They are in money-spending mode. And because most of them come from the Seattle side of the mountains, they have a bit more disposable income than the local folks I used to sell to at smaller venues in downtown Wenatchee. A pendant priced $59 isn’t a big expenditure for these folks, so I can actually sell and make money on my work.

This weekend was a great example. Although it was the second weekend of the show, it was my first weekend attending. I set up on Friday morning and began selling almost immediately. By 6 PM, I’d sold more than I had in an entire weekend on my last show. I did even better on Saturday and almost as well on Sunday.

Overall, it was the best weekend I’d ever had at any show anywhere.

Pendant
Here’s one of the pendants I made while I was sitting in my booth on Sunday morning. I made a total of six pendants that day.

It was so good that I spent most of Saturday and Sunday making more inventory. My wire work pendants continue to sell well in Leavenworth and I made five custom pendants for customers while I was there. I also made a bracelet and three beaded necklaces. This week I’ll be making a lot of earrings in my shop.

Now although the booth fee at Art at the Park is remarkably low, the non-profit organization that runs it does take a cut of sales: 21%. So I don’t get all of the money I brought in. But 21% is a lot less than the 35% or 40% I’m paying two galleries to show and sell my work. And I sold a lot more this past weekend than I’ve sold in my three year relationship with both galleries combined. So I’m definitely not complaining.

I’m doing two more weekends at Leavenworth this month. Then I’m stuck in Wenatchee for most of the summer. I applied to a show in Wenatchee in June and another show in Chelan in July. (I had to find a booth sitter for the July show in case rain is possible and I need to stay home.) I’m scheduled to go back to Leavenworth in August and September, but I may need to cancel that because of a conflict with another opportunity that I’m not quite ready to discuss here yet.

And if you’re a Leavenworth tourist reading this, I sure hope you’ll stop by Art in the Park while you’re in town. It’s open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from about 9 AM to 6 PM (or 5 PM on Sundays). I believe it’s also open on Thursdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Support local artists and makers!

Handmade Items: It’s NOT Just Materials Cost

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I explain why I charge $39 for a pair of earrings with less than $10 worth of materials.

Yesterday, I went down into my jewelry shop and made 6 pairs of earrings out of roughly $55 worth of sterling silver sheet metal and pre-made ear wires. I’ll sell each pair for $39. Sounds like a great deal for me, right? Well, if you read on, you’ll learn more about the actual cost of these earrings.

I tweeted my progress while creating these earrings, using a Twitter thread with photos. I skipped tweeting the first step, which was getting the pattern onto the silver — I don’t buy sheet silver with a pattern already on it (although I do sell it that way) — but got most of the other steps. They make up good documentation for this blog post’s purpose, which is to talk about what actually goes into making something from scratch: materials, tools, skills, and time.

Materials

The materials for this project were pretty basic:

  • 26 gauge sterling silver sheet. I buy the metal I plan to apply a pattern to in 6″ x 2.5″ pieces because that’s the size of most of my texture plates. I learned (the hard way) that you can ruin a texture plate by using it to texture a smaller piece of metal than the plate. Because of a 75% or so increase in the price of silver last year, this small piece of metal cost just over $42.
  • Sterling silver ear wires. I buy these in bulk, but they still cost nearly $1 each. I can save money by making them myself out of 20 gauge half-hard sterling silver wire, but I like the look of the ones I buy and they’re less likely to bend out of shape than the ones I make. I’ve even had one of the galleries I provide inventory to tell me that they prefer manufactured ear wires for the very same reason.
  • Rubber ear nuts. These are tiny pieces of rubber that go onto the end of the ear wire, making them less likely to fall out of your ear (or off the jewerly display card I use when selling). I buy them by the gross and they cost a fraction of a cent each. (I don’t understand why all jewelry makers don’t include them with ear wire earrings. Such a tiny, inexpensive little thing can prevent the loss of earrings.)

In addition to these materials. I also have the printed cards I use to display and sell the earrings. These cost just pennies apiece and are part of my marketing/selling expenses, but they shouldn’t be overlooked. Ditto for the specially sized, clear plastic zipper bags I put the earrings and cards into when I sell.

Tools and Equipment

It’s the tools and equipment that really add to the cost of the jewelry I make. As an accountant might tell you, these are fixed costs that need to be considered as part of anything you make with them. The more you use a tool or piece of equipment, the less the per-piece cost of that equipment is. An analogy from my day job as a pilot would be something like insurance: if it costs you $15K/year and you fly 100 hours a year, that’s $150/hour; but if you fly only 10 hours, that’s $1500/hour. Ouch.

Going through the steps to create these earrings, I used the following tools and equipment:

  • Rolling mill. This is the device I used to impress the pattern onto the silver. Rolling mills vary in cost. I have a Durston, which is made in the U.K. and isn’t cheap. But mine is small, so it wasn’t too costly. I think I paid around $750 for it.
  • Texture plate. This is a piece of brass with a texture on it. The brass is harder than the silver so when the two pieces of metal are run through the rolling mill together, the texture from the brass is imprinted onto the silver. The texture plates range in price from about $5 for a single-use paper version up to $100 or more for steel versions. My brass plate cost about $10 and will give me about 50 impressions before it’s too flat to make more impressions.
  • Metal shear. Although I didn’t really need it for this project, I used my metal shear to cut off a 1/4″ by 2 1/2″ piece of the textured metal to use as a ring blank. You see, when the metal goes through the rolling mill, it stretches. So even though I cut 1/4″ off one end, I still had 6″ x 2 1/2″ of textured metal to work with. My metal shear, which I use a lot, cost about $250.
  • Shape template. I use shape templates to create earrings and other items in consistent sizes and shapes. The template I used for this project has about 30 shapes/sizes on it and cost $8. It’s made of heavy duty plastic so it’ll last a long time.
  • Fine point Sharpie pen. That’s a tool, too. I used it to trace the shapes onto the metal as close as I could without overlapping. What do they cost? About $3 each?

  • IMG 0028
    Here’s the cutting job in progress.

    Joyce Chen kitchen shears. I have a variety of ways to cut metal sheet — my jeweler’s saw, a pair of French shears — but I used these shears for this project. They’ll cut through any reasonably thin soft metal — and 26 gauge silver is pretty thin and relatively soft. The cost? $21.

  • Flex shaft. After cutting out all those pieces, I needed to smooth their edges. Being the machine person I am, I used my flex shaft, which is basically a Dremel-style tool with the motor at the end of a long shaft and a foot pedal to control the speed. Mine is a EuroTool and cost about $120. But don’t forget to add the motor hangar for it, which cost another $32.
  • Mounted sandpaper cartridge roll. I used a sandpaper roll to do the actual sanding. They cost about $1 each.

  • IMG 0032
    Here’s my custom dapping block. The other drawn-on shape is for one I no longer use and never actually carved into the wood.

    Custom dapping block. A dapping block makes it possible to put a dome into pieces of metal. But because these earrings aren’t round, they needed a custom dapping block. I made mine from a piece of bass wood that only cost about $2, but I used a variety of Dremel bits to carve it out and I fine-tune it every time I use it. Still, we’ll say $2 for this homemade tool.

  • Nylon hammer. Although my photos on Twitter show me using a dapping punch with the block to put a dome on the metal, I actually used a domed nylon hammer that has always worked a little better for me. Cost: $14.
  • Hole punch. While I could have drilled holes for the ear wires into each piece before doming it using a center punch, flex shaft, and drill bit, I took the easy way with a 1.25mm metal hole punch. Cost: $14.
  • Scrap wire. I used a piece of thin copper wire to attach the earring pieces together for oxidizing them. The cost of this scrap is pennies and not even worth adding into the equation.

  • Using Liver of Sulfur
    In this shot, I’m dipping all 12 pieces of the earrings, on a copper wire, into the liver of sulfur. You can see the jar and mug warmer, as well as the side of the container next to it that I use for the baking soda rinse.

    Liver of Sulfur. Liver of sulfur is a chemical that, when dissolved in warm water, can darken copper or silver (but not gold). It’s widely used by jewelers who want an oxidized look on textured metal. The stuff I use costs $18/jar and that’ll last about a year.

  • Mason jar. I use a 1-pint wide mouth mason jar to mix, heat, and store the liver of sulfur. Because I do canning, I always have a bunch of spare jars — although once I use them for chemicals, I can’t wash and reuse them for food. Figure about $2 for this jar with the plastic lid.
  • Cup warmer. I use a coffee mug warmer to keep the liver of sulfur warm while working. The one I use costs $11, but you can sometimes find them cheaper in thift shops.
  • Baking soda. I mix baking soda and water in a glass bowl and use that to neutralize the chemical reaction of the liver of sulfur so the metal stops darkening. It’s the stuff you buy in the supermarket. How much? I don’t know. $3 for a box that’ll last a very long time?
  • Container. Of course, I need a container to put that baking soda and water solution in. I use reusable disposable plastic containers with lids. When I’m done, I cover it up so it doesn’t evaporate. Figure $2 for a container with a lid.
  • Tumbler. There are all kinds of tumblers you can use for jewelry, but I use a basic Lortone 3A 3-lb capacity rock tumbler. I paid about $110.
  • Ceramic tumbling media. This is my secret sauce and I’m not very motivated to provide details, mostly because it saves me a ton of work and provides consistent results every time I use it — which is vital when you need to make multiples that are the same. Let’s just say that it’s ceramic tumbling media that rubs the darkening off the raised part of the pattern. The stuff I use costs $45/bag and that bag will last at least a year. If you want to try it, find one that works for you. (Good luck.)
  • Dawn detergent. I add a drop or two of Dawn to the tumbler with the ceramic media and water. I always use dawn because everyone recommends Dawn. I buy small bottles that last a long time. What does that cost? Let’s say $2.
  • Extra tumbler barrel. Because it’s best to keep stainless steel shot separate from any other tumbling media, I had to buy an extra barrel. Add $36.
  • Stainless steel shot. Steel shot burnishes the finished jewelry. Don’t buy the cheap stuff; it’ll rust. I buy it by the pound for $26; because it doesn’t rust, it should last forever.
  • Burnishing compound. A few drops of burnishing compound in the tumbler with water and the steel shot helps achieve a nice polish. It’s $10 for an 8 oz. bottle that lasts at least a year.

  • Earrings
    I finished the earrings in my home at my breakfast bar while waiting for dinner to cook.

    Chain nose pliers. I use pliers to open the ear wire loops and close them once the earring piece is attached. My preferred brand: Wubbers. They’re not cheap but they’re heavy duty. $26.

  • Paper hole punch. I use a small punch to put holes in the cards that I mount earrings on. Figure about $9.

That’s everything I used directly during the course of this project. It doesn’t include rags or paper towels or the wipes I use to keep my workspace clean after sanding. It doesn’t include any of the furniture in my shop — my homemade jeweler’s bench, the tables where I keep my rolling mill and soldering station (where the liver of sulfur lives), or my adjustable height stool. It doesn’t include lighting and utilities for my shop space. Heck, it doesn’t even include the cost of constructing my shop space, which is an entire 12 x 24 foot room in my garage.

Let’s add these costs up:

ItemAcquisition Cost
Rolling Mill$750
Texture Plate$10
Shape Template$8
Fine Point Sharpie$3
Joyce Chen Shears$21
Flex Shaft$120
Flex Shaft Motor Hangar$32
Sandpaper Roll$1
Dapping Block$2
Nylon Hammer$14
Hole Punch$14
Liver of Sulfur$18
Mason Jar$2
Cup Warmer$11
Baking Soda$3
Container$2
Tumbler$110
Ceramic Media$45
Dawn Detergent$2
Extra Tumbler Barrel$36
Stainless Steel Shot$26
Burnishing Compound$10
Chain Nose Pliers$26
Paper Hole Punch$9
Total$1,275

Add that to the $55 in materials and you come up with $1,330. So if the only thing I ever made was those six pairs of earrings, their cost would be $222/pair.

Yes, that’s absurd. Of course I make more than six pairs of earrings with all this stuff. But how many pairs of earrings do I need to make and sell at $39/pair to cover my investment in tools and equipment?

Think about it.

Skills

And then there are skills, which come with training and experience.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve spent thousands of dollars on jewelry making courses — in-person and online — as well as books and magazines. YouTube videos can only take you so far — what works best is one-on-one time with someone who has actually been doing this for a while.

And practice. How many times did I screw up a piece of metal in my rolling mill? Or cutting it apart? Or oxidizing it? (I’m still smarting from a bad oxidation job on 3 pairs of Keum-boo earrings where I used a new (to me) solution and darkened the gold as well as the silver. Ouch.) Or any of the other steps that went into this project? Practice really does make perfect — or as close to it as a person can get. Practice takes time and burns through materials and supplies. It’s no coincidence that we practice with copper instead of silver or — heaven forbid — gold.

Time

Time is easily quantified for this job since I know when I started and when I finished: 3 hours. That comes out to 30 minutes per pair of earrings. This is why I made stuff like this in batches; it’s a much more efficient use of time.

But how long did it take last time when I didn’t necessarily have everything as well organized? And how long will it take next time, when practice makes me a bit faster?

And shouldn’t I be compensated for my time? Clearly, I wasn’t compensated directly for the time I spent in training or reading up on new techniques or ruining materials because of inexperience or dumb errors. I should, at least, be compensated for the time I spent actually creating salable pieces of jewelry, no?

The Bottom Line

Finished Earrings
Some of the finished products.

Here’s the bottom line: I took 3 hours of my time and used thousands of dollars worth of training, hundreds of hours worth of practice time, and $1,330 worth of materials, tools, and equipment to make 6 pairs of earrings that I’ll sell for $39/pair.

I think buyers are getting quite a deal, don’t you?

Glue? In a Silversmithing Video?

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I vent a little about people who should know better showing junk jewelry shortcuts in their jewelry-making videos.

I watch a lot of videos about making jewelry. I must have seen hundreds of them by now. Most were on YouTube, but I’ve also purchased in depth jewelry making videos on DVD or streaming services. I learn a lot from these and they can inspire me.

My favorite jewelry makers on YouTube

Want a few suggestions for getting started? Here are my top 5 favorite jewelry makers on YouTube:

  • Soham Harrison. Soham makes no-nonsense videos that really teach techniques. His camera setup isn’t fancy but it does the job. Lots of his videos are great projects for beginners, but there’s some advanced stuff, too. Soham is based in Australia but his accent is American.
  • Online Jewelry Academy. This one uses a set to record videos on a wide range of topics. The host, Professor John Ahr, is knowledgeable and a little weird. Lots of great videos for beginners here.
  • Andrew Berry. Andrew Berry is another jeweler who teaches jewelry making. His videos cover a wide range of topics. I believe he’s based in the UK.
  • Estona Metalsmithing. I recently discovered this channel and have watched quite a few of her videos. She seems to be making an effort to build up her subscriber base with quality tutorials. There’s a great beginner’s series and a bunch of other videos that go beyond the basic. She’s based in the Netherlands and speaks with a heavy accent, but her English is perfect. Just be aware that her terminology doesn’t always match the terms we use here.
  • Rio Grande. Rio is a jewelry making supplier and they’ve got a bunch of videos that teach techniques, many of which are related to items they sell. While some are strictly marketing videos, there’s lot of good how-to material, too.

Before I go any further, however, I need to warn wannabe jewelry makers that there are a lot of crap videos out there. Videos that show you how to make junk jewelry or videos made by people who obviously don’t know what they’re doing and make videos out of their experiments. I also occasionally have trouble with the personalities (or voices, even) of some of the video makers. I have zero tolerance for people who spend more time talking about how smart they are than actually showing you how to make something great. And that woman who talks like Cindy Lauper? Sorry. I just can’t keep tuning in. So although I encourage you to watch videos to learn, be prepared to wade through a lot of crap to find gold.

All that said, yesterday I watched a video from Durango Silver, which is a well-known turquoise and jewelry seller seller based in Durango, CO. The video covered making a basic gemstone pendant and although I’ve seen dozens of videos on that topic and have made many of my own, I checked it out, hoping to learn a few new tricks.

The guy who was making the piece — John — definitely had experience and knowledge. His narration was better than average, but far from perfect — for example, he occasionally used the wrong word for something or left sentences unfinished as he was working. It amazed me when he started talking about how much he loved a particular pair of pliers, pointing out that they were made in Pakistan (like 75% of jewelry making tools) and struggling to get the name Wubbers out with a laugh. Why did that amaze me? Well, Wubbers is generally recognized as a quality brand of tool and I really think he should have been familiar with the name.

The camera work was excellent. Most videos are one-person affairs where the camera sits on a tripod that may or may not be in the best position; this video had a camera guy who did a great job staying focused (literally and figuratively) on what we needed to see.

The video was long — 50+ minutes — and I watched it on my new bedroom TV setup. That means I fell asleep before he was done. (I cannot read or watch TV in a horizontal position without falling asleep.) In the morning, however, I finished watching it on my iPad while I had breakfast. I did learn something — a new (to me) technique for attaching a bail — and, because of this, I consider watching the video time well spent.

Stick Soldering
Screen capture from the video showing John soldering the bezel and a jump ring to the back plate. One of the things I learned in this video was a new (to me) technique for using a jump ring to connect a pendant bail. He also demonstrated stick soldering, which I’ve seen a few times but haven’t tried yet.

That is, until I got to the end. You see, John was creating a bezel setting for a cabochon. A bezel is a strip of thin metal — silver, in this case — that is formed to fit the stone and soldered onto a back plate. When all the soldering and polishing is done, the very last step is to fit the stone into the prepared bezel and use a variety of tools to bend the top edge of the metal down around the stone to hold it in place. This is a standard bezel setting technique. Look it up, take a class, watch a bunch of bezel set videos and 99% of them will show you this correct way.

The video started going off the rails for me when John reached for a coffee mug full of sawdust and put some into the bottom of the finished piece, under where the stone would go. Sawdust. A wood product. In a piece of sterling silver jewelry.

Sawdust in a Bezel
Here’s another screen grab from the video. This one shows the layer of sawdust at the bottom of the bezel.

He then put the stone on top of it. The sawdust’s job was to raise the stone a bit so the bezel wouldn’t come up too high on the stone.

Let me take a moment to explain how getting the bezel the right height for the stone is usually done. There are two techniques to choose from:

  • Before shaping and soldering the bezel, cut it to the right height. This is the correct way to do this. It’s a pain in the ass because you’re normally only trimming off a millimeter or two and it’s important to make a good, level cut. If your cut is bad, you can level it out with sandpaper after soldering it closed.
  • Put something under the stone to raise it. Folks who do this normally use some sort of material that will not decay in any way. Tiny cut up pieces of credit cards are popular. I have, in the past, used copper sheet cut to size. (I once made a pair of earrings with bezel set cabochons and although the stones matched in appearance, one was definitely thicker than the other; I used copper under the thinner one to make it match its mate.) I’ve never seen anyone use a biodegradable product like sawdust.

Okay. So this guy used sawdust. He called it “jeweler’s sawdust.” I’ve never seen it before — and I’ve shopped at a lot of jewelry supply sites and stores. Maybe that’s acceptable in the business? I didn’t know but I also wasn’t going to switch.

What he did next, however, floored me. He pulled out a bottle of liquid glue and, using the needle-tip applicator, glued the stone into the bezel.

Glue
He called that stuff “superglue.”

I screamed at my iPad: “Not glue! Don’t fuck it up with glue!”

Of course, he kept gluing. I turned it off. I couldn’t bear to watch him permanently affix, with “superglue,” a beautiful cabochon to a very nice sterling silver setting and the sawdust beneath it with glue.

(I later watched the end. He did use a bezel setting tool to close up the bezel over the stone. But why the glue? Ugh.)

Later, I went back to look at the comments people had left on the video. Everyone loved it. Half of them said that they’d been wanting to try something like this and now they thought they were ready to do it.

I was horrified. He was teaching new jewelry makers a lazy way to do a bezel setting. A way that allowed makers to rely on glue instead of design and skills to set the stone.

But what was worse was that he was showing me that the jewelry made and sold by Durango Silver is likely held together with glue rather than the skill of the jewelry artist.

I guess the moral of the story is this: don’t just watch one video about how to do something. Watch a bunch. Pay attention to the details. If there’s a technique that most of the video makers are using, maybe it’s the right technique.

With very few exceptions, glue has no place in fine jewelry.

B&S Gauge Thicknesses, Saw Blades, and Drill Bits

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Another handy chart for jewelry makers.

The other day, I published a chart of Minimum Metal Gauges for making jewelry. I’d made the chart for my own use, based on information I got from the Rio Grande website.

But what I’ve really wanted for a long while was a single chart that listed B&S gauge sizes, the corresponding measurements in millimeters and inches, and the correct jeweler’s saw blade and drill bit sizes for each gauge. For some reason, I could not find all of this information on one chart anywhere.

So I made one by combining information from the Contenti and Livingston Jewelers websites. Here’s the result:

Thicknesses, blades, and bits
This is the chart I’ve been looking for! In the end, I had to make it myself from multiple sources of information.

You can download this chart as a PDF from my public Dropbox folder.

Keep in mind that although I do have a set of jeweler’s drill bits, I don’t use them. Instead, I have a set of bits in various fractional mm sizes — I pick the drill bit I need from that set because I can get a much closer drill bit size for my needs.