Bench jeweler

A bench jeweler is an artisan who uses a combination of jewelry-making skills to make and repair jewelry. The jewelry making arts can be subdivided into a very great many categories of specialized skills. Some of the more common skills that a bench jeweler might employ include antique restoration goldsmithing, stonesetting, engraving, fabrication, wax carving, lost-wax casting, electroplating, forging, and polishing. In order to understand how a bench jeweler fits into the process of jewelry making, it is important to understand the process itself.

In general, an original design is made and sold using processes such as molding, casting, stamping and similar techniques. The other is original, one of a kind work. The bench jeweler will be a factor in many facets of the process, depending on what is needed and the skills of the worker.

When a production piece is contemplated, it may go through a design process that can range from one person with an idea to a full-scale planning stage involving teams of artists and marketing professionals. Eventually, that design will need to be made into a real piece of metal jewelry, which is generally called a model, and the worker who makes it is generally the model maker. This is often considered the highest form of craftsmanship, as the piece must be made true to the design and also to most exacting standards. A good model maker is, along with a fine watchmaker among the most technically skilled workers in any trade. After the model is made and found to be what is desired, it is molded or perhaps entered into a machining process to make copies. Assuming it is molded, multiples of the piece are cast from the mold. See lost-wax casting, which article has a sculptural inclination, though the principles are the same for jewelry casting. The cast pieces will likely need a variety of work done to them, including filing to remove the skin left from casting and prepare for polishing, straightening parts, rounding and sizing rings, and assembling many various parts together using solder. Although the method used is called soldering, it is actually a form of brazing, using "solders" of the metal being worked, i.e. gold solders for gold pieces, silver solder for silver pieces, etc. All of this is the work of bench jewelers, who at this level are sometimes known as production workers in some arenas. In this context, the bench jeweler (often known simply as a goldsmith) is responsible for all of the main work involved in turning a raw casting into a piece of jewelry - filing it, straightening it, assembling parts or adding settings for stones, repairing any problems that might have occurred, and preparing it for stonesetting and polishing.

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