Hi from Moon Willow

[Moon Willow]

Hi James,

spot on !!! at the moment I'm trying to preserve my hands (diagnosed ostioarthritus) due to putting my hands through the mill daily, so I'm officially signed off and waiting (6 months) to see T's next move.
See Ya
Carlton

[Goldsmith]

Carlton, the man who trained me used to work for K before T took them over, he left K and went on to work at Garrards until Padgett took over the Garrard insignia department in 1953. One of the reasons I have decided to retire is that I have Cervical Spondylosis with Osteophites, which means I cannot spend hours at the bench anymore, after a few hours work my neck locks up and I can sometimes get a trapped nerve which means I lose some feeling in my fingers. I think we both probably suffer from working too long at the bench.
A friend of mine in West Sussex has some wizzard new CNC machines and is starting to get a lot of GB badge work, when I made the GB regalia we had drop stamps and dies to create the shapes, but Padgetts gave up stamping in 1972 when they moved from Soho out to Hackney.
Cheers, James

[lorraineflee]

Hi Carlton and welcome from me too! Looking forward to picking your brains as well.
Lorraine

[DragonflyLynne]

Dragonfly Lynne you have a great way of getting people interested in jewellery ..........give them rings, they luv them :-)) a byzantine chain is one of the first things I teach my students.

Byzantine is a great first chain isn't it? I look forward to chatting with you

[Moon Willow]

James, I'm sorry to hear that, it seems I've got off lightly compared to you, mmmmmmmmm do you think that jewellery making should come with a gov health warning !! perhaps we should start a new thread about the dangers e.g no-one talks about the most important thing that a jeweller needs... a decent seat !!! and a nice cup of coffee (joking about the coffee) the height of the seat compared to the height of the bench.

The drop hammers ha ha ha they are still around, but with the giant screw press and the hydraulic press taking over you would think that would stop the dies cracking (that's another story)
chat later Carlton