I'll be in tri-focals soon enough.

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.“ -Oscar Wilde

They say that when you practice something over and over, say a movement or a physical action, you develop what is referred to as “muscle memory”. which basically means you’ve done the same movement enough times that your body goes on auto pilot and your (in my case) hands just know what to do.

I’ll explain.

I find it amusing that I tend to look at things like jewelry, crafts, clothing, furniture, anything, etc and scoff at its craftsmanship or design and say “I can MAKE that, I’m not BUYING it”. I think anyone wit any creative streak IN them has at some point done this once, if not more frequently then we admit. And when you DO get the opportunity to make it yourself, you discover that not only is it more time consuming and expensive to do it your way, but it would have been cheaper and less stressful to just buy it. We never really analyze what goes into making something complex until our arrogance sits us down with the process involved and makes us give it a shot.

Monday found me face to face with a yellow gold circle pendant with 24 tiny gaping holes waiting for a tiny bur to make tiny seats for the tiny stones. This is one of those moments that I realized I’d taken for granted the skill and patience that goes into a project like this. Now, it seems like this would be cut and dry. Bur some seats, drop in some stones, tweak some prongs, wah-lah. Done.

Nope.

Here one of the requirements was to line up all 24 stones (2mm) and high-grade them and sort them out before setting them. Which means: I had to line up my stones according to the girdle thickness, table height, pavilion shape etc. And I had to do this looking through a 10x loupe. You can imagine how cross-eyed we all were. That took the better part of an hour just to do that. And you HAVE to do that because part of your grade involves setting them in order. I could write a small book on why they make us do it this way but I wont. Just trust me. After that was over, I got to bur a seat, set a stone, bur a seat, set a stone, repeat. And each time you do this you have to make sure that every stones table is even with the last stone. And if its not, then you tweak until it is. When I finally got all 24 stones set I had to show it to Doug. Once I got the grunt of approval I got to go back to my bench and cut off one inside and one outside prong to simulate damage/wear and do some repronging. I’m proud to announce that I didn’t melt anything and my repair job was awesome. And one of the prongs was a bit chunky, but you wouldn’t notice it unless I pointed it out to you with a loupe.

Repronging!

Tuesday through Thursday found us making earrings. Two pairs. More setting practice but this time with different stones. No spinells this week. The first pair of earrings were kind of cool. The first pair we did we a pair of radiant cut Moissanites which are similar in look to diamonds. The only thing that sucked was that they abrade pretty easily, so you had to be careful with your files when you shaped the prongs. We were given the heads for them so it was nice to not have to MAKE it, but setting them was a bit different since the cuts on the stones were sort of odd. I think they went out of their way to give us the stones that were cut by the half-blind stone cutter. Doug said to get used to it. So we did. Sometimes you just have to roll with the dice you’re given, right? The second pair were completely hand fabricated settings for a pair of round green marcasites. They looked like how you imagine pearl earrings looking, except with these hideous green balls glued onto them. Every single stone I got was drilled by the same blind guy who cut our Moissanites, so I had to make some adjustments to the stone and my setting of it. I managed at some point to split an entire ball in half trying to jam it onto my ill-filed post, so I got a new one which was delightfully drilled correctly. I then gleefully hammered the carcass of the split stone into dust. Jeweler therapy I call it.

Friday found me completely caught up with all of my projects and with nothing to do. SO I checked out a supplemental project. Yes, that’s right, and extra project. I don’t get any credit for it, but it gives me an opportunity to try stuff I haven’t without fear of losing a grade. Which is cool. So I checked out a pendant project which is involving me making a very precision setting for a channel set emerald cut. Which looked easier then it was. I spend all of Friday filing and fitting, filing and fitting. And by the end of the day I had the home for the stone soldered together. This is a piece in progress, so I haven’t set the stone, and that will have to wait until I have another down day. Maybe by then I will have learned how to channel set!

Four flush set stones!

There was a bit of sadness this week in my class. We had our first academic drop, and it was one of my “gang” unfortunately. I cant really go into detail, since all of the details were sort of personal for her, but my friend got dropped due to unsatisfactory performance. Luckily though this school has made some accommodations and is letting her roll back to the class behind us (which is in week 8 or 9 now) without penalty but she has to wait until they get to week 14. Anyway, it was sad this whole week not having her here and stranger to see her bench empty. But we’re happy that they’re cutting her some slack. The positive side of that is it was a wake up call for those still behind as they all figured out that the schools academic requirements aren’t really a suggestion, but actual requirements. So everyone’s been on time and in class this week which is impressive.

Other than that, its just the same old same old. Work, school, sleep. But I did manage to score a couple days off this week so it was an above average relaxing week for me. I did escape the apartment last night to meet up with one of my brothers friends who’s out here temporarily doing his Marine Corps thing and we had a couple drinks and hung out. It was really nice to see a familiar face around here. Its always interesting to hang out with a gang of rowdy military guys, toss in some beer and *wah-lah* you have an amusing evening. And oddly enough I always feel safe with these types of guys because it feels like you’re surrounded by a bunch of brothers. Which is cool.

Bench Exam #4

On to week 16!! Ten weeks of madness left everyone!

Until next week, be well.