The Video Bank

It’s not often a commercial product comes along that Andrew finds is better than an ‘old’ product or better than a ‘homemade’ one, but when he was given a bottle of FireScoff, Andrew realised that this product was a winner.

FireScoff beats all the other product hands down for protecting surfaces from firescale or the patina. As a test, Andrew soldered gold onto a highly reflective plate after he had sprayed the surface with FireScoff. No flux was needed. When the piece was brought out of the ultrasonic, the plate was still as shiney as it was before and not the slightest bit of discolouration. So the plate needed no polishing at all. Saving you time and money

Have you ever needed more power from your regular hand held butane torch? Do you wish that you could heat up your solder joints quicker? Do you want to make larger items like bangles and anneal large pieces of metal?

If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, then the New GT600S could well be your answer. It is still refillable with butane gas canisters but it has that extra capacity to hold more gas and it also has a larger ‘hotter’ nozzel. Great if you want more heat and a larger flame.

Your hands are your number one tool so it pays to look after them. Every day we wash our hands and so the skin dries out. You need to replace the moisture using an oil or cream, but not every one can use the ‘normal’ hand creams. This is where Derma Guard comes in.

DermaGuard is the ultimate truly hypoallergenic moisturising topical barrier lotion which guards the skin from the widest array of possibly harmful materials.

Work faster and make finer jewellery with the BenchMate Support System, an advanced family of tools to make stone setting, jewellery repair, soldering and fabrication easier than ever.

Just before one Christmas a couple of years ago, Andrew purchased his GRS BenchMate and now wished he bought it sooner. The accuracy of his setting that year and all the years since has been second to none. The ability to have both hands to work on and hold the item of jewellery, will take your jewellery making to the next level.

Part Two

We are starting a series of tutorials on how to use the workshop equipment. Although most of the equipment needs no instructions, it is best to brush up on its purpose and to understand how the equipment works. Good equipment for the workshop is not cheap so you also need to know how to look after it to keep it in first class condition.

In these films, Andrew looks at a standard rolling mill and shows you how to use it correctly and how to look after it.

Diamond Testers are electronic instruments with a fine tipped nib that you place on the stone and it lets you know if it is a diamond or a simulant.

With so much second hand jewellery being bought and sold, it is wise to know whether your diamonds are real or not.

The testers work by bringing the nib in contact with the stone and usues thermal conductivity to see what the stone is. Diamond has very high thermal conductivity, exceeded in gemstones only by Synthetic Moissanite, so a Diamond Tester is able to rule out all other simulants such as Cubic Zirconia etc.

Part Two

Jeweller’s and Goldsmiths often need to reduce the diameter of platinum, gold or silver wire to suit a particular project.

There is no better tool that will do the job as efficiently as a drawplate. Drawplates allow you to reduce your existing wire wauge without having to stock a wide variety of diameters.

Each drawplate has holes that decrease in size by small amounts that making wire drawing easy. Andrew shows you three ways to draw down wire.

Part One

We are starting a series of tutorials on how to use the workshop equipment. Although most of the equipment needs no instructions, it is best to brush up on its purpose and to understand how the equipment works. Good equipment for the workshop is not cheap so you also need to know how to look after it to keep it in first class condition.

In this first film, Andrew looks at a standard rolling mill and shows you how to use it correctly and how to look after it.

Part One

Jeweller’s and Goldsmiths often need to reduce the diameter of platinum, gold or silver wire to suit a particular project.

There is no better tool that will do the job as efficiently as a drawplate. Drawplates allow you to reduce your existing wire wauge without having to stock a wide variety of diameters.

Each drawplate has holes that decrease in size by small amounts that making wire drawing easy. Andrew shows you three ways to draw down wire.

Cold Enamelling offers all the advantages and effects of traditional enamelling but does away with the need for an expensive kiln. The finish obtained is hard and heat resistant and is not affected by acids, oils, bleach or water.

Working with Cold Enamel opens up a whole range of colouring possibilitiesto enable you to add a ‘splash’ of colour to your jewellery. The techniques of using Cold Enamel are not difficult and with either kit available from Clare John at CJ Resins, you will have all you need to make your jewellery stand out from the crowd.