trouble shooting..(setting).

Gemsetterchris · Jan 11, 2016

Just been asked to continue setting some models for a highly regarded company that have for the past couple of years been done by a talented trained goldsmith who makes/sets & finishes their own.

I sent them back stating the stone size being a fraction too small & therefore cannot be done correctly....

I wonder how many products are out there that could be significantly improved by some slight tweaking by listening to someone who "knows a little better" & wants to help?

Bit like all those "Ramsay" type programs on tv these days.

Very difficult to educate & tell someone they are doing things not quite right even though they somehow manage to get away with things for years.

Can`t bring myself to do work unless it is at least within a certain range of correctness & the amount of borderline cases these days is quite unsettling!

Brian Marshall · Jan 11, 2016

Good on you... most would have taken the money and not looked back.

Brian

Gemsetterchris · Jan 11, 2016

Problem is I lose work for that.
I gave my young lad 30 seconds instruction to do a sufficient passable job"in their eyes".
Any point of an apprenticeship these days?
It's all the fluff of brand names & marketing...high quality materials/ skilled workers..but no need to use the skills as you can get away with some high polish.

Brian Marshall · Jan 11, 2016

The biggest problem, in my eyes - is that the final owner of the work (consumer) is not educated enough to know the the difference...

Or care.

You see that in all precision handmade, handworked products. Very very very few know the difference between excellent, good or passable stone setting. Those few are willing to pay for bit of extra.

Even less appear to know the difference in hand engraving. Poor design, poor skills and even worse execution are accepted and drooled over!

Brian

Gemsetterchris · Jan 11, 2016

& the situation gets worse every year with the influx of the " make money from your hobby brigade".

Pre- notched claws? Pffft.

Keirkof · Jan 11, 2016

Amen, Chris! I too am amazed at how little knowledge the other craftsmen involved have about the needs for a good setting. I too regularly send work back where people expect me to set some pavÃ© in a band that is narrower than the stones themselves. And how many times don't we get chatons where the prongs are barely long enough to protrude above the stone's girdle. Or with plate that is thinner than the stone's girdle itself...
People design the pieces how they look when they're done (often a disease with 3D designers), with no regards whatsoever to what we need to do to get them there. And if you complain: "gosh, man, can't you just fix it, i mean think of the amount of work that has gone into that already".

Brian Marshall · Jan 11, 2016

Over the years I have had GIA "Design" graduates employed by jewelry stores send me drawing of rings, pendants, etc. to have made...

I had to reply to several of them that their "designs" could not be constructed out of the available materials on this particular planet. Some of them would have to defy gravity, some would have to shrink to fit the space restraints and others would just physically fall apart if constructed "as instructed".

I doubt this "Design" course still exists, since the advent of an even worse successor. The CAD/CAM stuff.

In my not so humble opinion, if you are going to teach students to design things to be made in metal with gemstones - then they damn well better BE metalsmiths, bench jewelers and competent setters FIRST! (with some years of experience)

Before you teach them CAD/CAM and turn them loose on the world...

Brian

J.Hayes · Jan 11, 2016

Then there's the so called "designer" that people fall for. The as cast rough finish and such. Had a customer bring in a "designer" piece with about a 1ct diamond in it, wanted me to remove it and set something else in its place, told her I wouldn't work on it but could remove the diamond, pushed it right out the side with my thumb! Then she said something about me not being a "designer" I kinda laughed, told her "no, I'm a craftsman, I build my stuff to last" , had to walk away.....

monk · Jan 11, 2016

the mentality persists wherever one looks. i don't set gems, but the same mentality comes into my shop. "i don't care whether it's machine engraved, or done by hand". "i just want it done by 6 pm". and they always look for a discount. i always try to be tactful with folks, but there are times i just don't care if they leave "****ed off ", as long as they leave. i no longer accept "repair" jobs that come in from a local jewelery store or things remembered. it seems the youngsters there are more interested in their cellphones than doing their best.

mitch · Jan 11, 2016

but, but, but, Brian... Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

(Perhaps the single most misunderstood and misapplied quote of all time, especially the first sentence.)

Brian Marshall · Jan 11, 2016

"but, but , but, Brian" ? (first "sentence")

C'mon Mitch, I've been called worse... try harder!

I know it's a family forum, but there are snide ways of getting your point across - without removing a coupla 3 "t"s.

Brian

trouble shooting..(setting).

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