Bench Tips for Jewelry Making: 101 Useful Tips from Brad Smith

by Bradford M. Smith

In every field the top artisans have their favorite ways of solving common problems. Making a piece of fine jewelry is no exception. The work is intricate, but accomplished jewelers have a variety of techniques, special tools and shortcuts that are proven to save time and improve the quality of your work.This book is written as a resource for jewelers with skill levels from beginner through advanced. The bench tips come from Brad Smith's 17 years of experience in the jewelry industry, including a decade teaching hundreds of students. 101 tips are detailed and illustrated with closeup pictures as ready solutions for common problems at the bench. They include over 20 ways to save time when soldering and polishing, 8 common hazards to avoid, many ways to cut costs, 10 tips to improve stone setting skills, and the "Must-Have" tools for increasing productivity at the bench.

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2012

About the author

Brad Smith is a studio jeweler, lapidary, and jewelry instructor based in Santa Monica, California. He works with silver, gold, exotic woods, bone, fossil ivory, and meteorite. His teaching career started with the Los Angeles school system where he taught "Advanced Jewelry" in the Adult Education Department for eight years. In 2009, he designed and built a new jewelry facility at Santa Monica's Adult Education Center where he currently teaches beginning and advanced classes.

As a long-time member of the Culver City Rock Club, Brad has taught lapidary skills, led field trips, organized gem and mineral shows, and held many positions including club President. He is a member of the Metal Arts Society of Southern California where he served as Vice President and on the Board of Directors. There he organized workshops with nationally known jewelry artists.

Smith's Step-by-Step article on broom casting was published in the inaugural issue of Interweave's "Jewelry Artist" magazine. His book, "Bench Tips for Jewelry Making", includes 101 useful ways to solve common problems at the bench. His second book, "Broom Casting for Creative Jewelry and Metal Work", is a quick and easy way to produce marvelous icicle-like shapes that make up into elegant pendants and earrings. Smith also provides jewelry notes material to over 200 monthly newsletters in six countries.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Bench Jeweler, I absolutely recommend this book to others in my field. "Bench Tips for Jewelry Making 101" will be a reference of mine for years to come, and in my metalsmith library forever.