Make Delicate Designs in Wood with a Plunge Router, a Template, and a Tiny Bit.

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If gem inlay is a simple matter of gluing mineral slivers into metal recesses, why does it take apprentices at Bagley & Hotchkiss Ltd. Three years to learn the basics of this art? (more…)

If you want to see sterling examples of precious metal inlay, look at your face in a mirror and open wide. Your fillings, assuming you have some, are perfect illustrations of this technique. Put as simply and broadly as possible, inlay is the permanent embedding of one material in another. (more…)

Gold doesn’t have to glitter to be gold. In fact, many jewelry manufacturers deliberately trade high gloss for low luster in order to give their pieces a muted appearance. Since gold is, by nature, a metal that loves to shine, keeping it from doing so requires skillful mutilation with various abrasives. (more…)

In this installment of General Metallurgy, Paul Finelt finishes his discussion of phase diagrams and begins on practical applications for casting. (more…)

This installment of Paul Finelt’s Understanding Metals deals with understanding alloy phase diagrams. It is probably the most technical and complicated article of the series, but once the reader is over this ‘hump,’ practical application for the jeweler and manufacturer will follow… (more…)