S5-14: Laser Precision with xTool F1 & Jewelry Educator Meaghan Young

In this episode of For the Love of Jewelers, co-hosts Mark Nelson and Fiona Morrison explore the xTool F1 laser engraver and how powerfully versatile it is for jewelry artists. Then, they join Meaghan Young, a Rio for Schools instructor and founder of Crested Butte and Sedona Jewelry Schools, who shares insights into teaching and the importance of finding your own way. Plus, get tips on polishing, Dedeco® finishing tools, and maximizing efficiency with multiple mandrels. 

Transcript

Mark Nelson:

You are listening to Rio Grande's For the Love of Jewelers podcast, a celebration of jewelers, the jewelry community, and the art of jewelry making. Each episode will bring you closer to the heart of the jewelry industry, featuring interviews with top designers, skilled artisans, and passionate educators who shape our craft. We'll share their stories, techniques, and tips to inspire and elevate your own jewelry journey.

Hello and welcome to the For the Love of Jewelers podcast. I'm your host, Mark Nelson, and joining me on today's show is my friend and co-host Fiona Morrison. Fiona, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Fiona Morrison:

Hi, Mark. Thanks for having me today. It's wonderful to be here. Getting into a little bit about myself. I've been at Rio for just over five years now. Yeah, so I've really started out all across our company, coming with a background in jewelry for a little over a decade now. I started on our manufacturing resource team, helping out across the board from casting, stamp and form, in our training department with waxes, to metal assessors. Pretty much across the board, I was really helping out, getting my feet wet and everything. Then, as stuff started to progress, I was really full time on our casting team, helping out also with some of our customization services that we do, from stone setting, finishing, really getting my hands dirty in everything.

Mark Nelson:

Yay.

Fiona Morrison:

So that was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot, especially in that process, and a more manufacturing scale, just really honing in my own skills and realizing what's applicable, and then what really I needed to get better at, and what I needed to hone in and really practice those skills. And from there, I've seen a lot of growth in my own experience as a jeweler, and continue to see reasons to grow personally as well as here at Rio.

Then, as stuff started to progress, I worked with tech a little bit, wanted to do a lot of training with them, and as things started to progress. I realized that, "Oh, I want to get more experience on our sales side of things," and I've been on our sales teams for... Oh, it feels like it's approaching almost a year now at this point.

Mark Nelson:

I know.

Fiona Morrison:

Starting out-

Mark Nelson:

You've had a crazy year, too.

Fiona Morrison:

It has been a crazy year, definitely. And even with that, I've had a lot of movement getting exposure to a wide variety of all of our customers, from our wholesale customers to working on our pro team. I'm now on our Mountain Region team, and I've been helping out recently on some of our tech chats and tech team calls as well. So I really feel like it's been very immersive to have that experience directly with our customers, because feeling that I enjoy having that sort of well-rounded approach with our customers both, from the back end, and then interacting with them, because really that's where it's at, I guess you could say. Having that interaction with the jewelers, and seeing what people are doing, and the experiences people are having, and all the creative ways people take this industry and what they do with it, which I'm sure you have many more years of experience than I seeing what everyone does.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, working with the customers is the best, because you always get the craziest things, and one of the things I love seeing you around the sales floor is your just passion for solving things. You're like, "I got an issue, I got to fix it.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

You know, and there's nothing stopping you from doing that. You just go full in.

Fiona Morrison:

Well, that's really where I feel like the jewelry industry as a whole is so applicable to everyday life, because that's really what it comes down to is you're saying, "Here's something I want to make. Here's every issue I can possibly run into making it, how can I fix it?"

Mark Nelson:

Right, right.

Fiona Morrison:

So it's good seeing that, just... It's life skills, I guess you could say, that really apply to everyday use that help you out in the trade.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, that's fantastic, man. Well, I want to talk a little bit about our guest today. Her name's Meaghan Young, and she's from the Crested Butte and Sedona Jewelry Schools, and she's one of our most active Rio for Schools instructors, and has been for many years. And Meaghan has taught numerous jewelers techniques to help them grow as artists and jewelers, but she also worked very heavily on teaching them the business of jewelry making, and she's a coach, and she has classes, and a lot of her students are very, very successful. So I'm really looking forward to talking with her. So we're going to get to her in just a little bit, and I think that you have something to share with us?

Fiona Morrison:

Today's episode is sponsored by Dedeco Tools, a leader in precision tools for shaping and perfecting your jewelry designs. Dedeco abrasives are essential additions for any batch. From September 15th through the 30th, use code riodedeco to get an amazing 30% off the Dedeco Sunburst All-In-One Radial Disc Kit, and the Dedeco Sunburst Deluxe Bristle Disc Point and Polishing Kit.

Before we get to our interview with Meaghan, I want to share an exciting new tool that is trending on the market. So this new tool in question is the xTool. We have two different models, I guess you could say, that are available at the moment. We have the xTool and then that xTool Ultra that we just got. These are, I would say, one of the coolest new technologies I've seen in the engraving, and now with this xTool Ultra laser cutting options.

Mark Nelson:

Oh, my God.

Fiona Morrison:

Especially for the price point, it makes it so that the technology, which for so long has been very exclusive, because it's a big investment to get into, is now something that is available for the everyday jeweler.

Mark Nelson:

So let's talk about that real quick. What are the price points?

Fiona Morrison:

For the xTool or what we're considering, the portable laser, we have that starting at $1,600, and then we have the xTool Ultra, which is around the $4,000 mark, which is still honestly a steal for what it's going to do for you.

Mark Nelson:

It's Ultra, it's more.

Fiona Morrison:

Oh, it's a lot more. So what's so cool about these units, and they both really excel at in different ways, honestly, I wouldn't even say that it's the beginner model and then the step-up. It sort of is depending on what you're doing, but for the most part, these are going to do anywhere from photorealistic engravings on pretty much any material you can think of.

Mark Nelson:

And these are laser engravings, right?

Fiona Morrison:

These are laser engravings, yeah, and it's two different lasers, too, which is really cool. So you have your IR laser, your infrared for metals, so then you have a blue laser for anything else, from stone, wood, acrylic, glass. Then, from there you're going up to... You have an engraving that this can do. So talking to the small one, that's mostly just... Or I shouldn't say the small one, talking to our portable laser, that's going to do more of a surface engrave, so it's really great for permanent jewelers. You're at a show, you want to do something on the move. When I say portable, I mean-

Mark Nelson:

It's portable.

Fiona Morrison:

It's like, it's portable. You can pick it up like a lunchbox and bring it with you.

Mark Nelson:

Right.

Fiona Morrison:

Also really cool about it is a bottom plate can be removed, so you can do it on larger surfaces too, which just opens up a whole other range of possibilities.

Mark Nelson:

Oh, yeah.

Fiona Morrison:

I think I heard that somebody even did a practice on a car window when this first came out, so it's really a fun unit. Then, you are moving up to that xTool Ultra, which is really more of a production machine, I'd say, bordering on lower end of production for a jeweler. That's going to be able to do cutting, first of all. I believe it's up to 20 gauge that they say, but honestly, for my experience with it, you could probably get thicker than that, if you really were trying.

Mark Nelson:

Now, is that for all metals, or different metals, or different thicknesses?

Fiona Morrison:

For the most part, I'd say, I mean, I haven't tried to do any cutting on something harder, like if you're doing stainless steel or titanium. For at least in thicker materials, I've seen it cut titanium in the thinner gauge without much problem at all. With something like silver, gold fill, gold, you're going to be fine with that. It's really a powerful unit. It's pretty cool. When we were first messing around with it, I was saying even that engraving step, if you bump that power way up and you're doing several steps, I saw it almost eat all the way through a piece of metal, just engraving. So it's powerful, it's a really cool unit.

Mark Nelson:

How hard is it to learn how to use it?

Fiona Morrison:

Super easy. You have a free download of the program that you can get from the xTool website that you basically download into your computer, and it's about as easy to use as a Word program.

Mark Nelson:

Dang.

Fiona Morrison:

And you can go somewhere, so it has some stuff preloaded into it, so you can do text, you can choose your fonts. I wouldn't say I know the exact number of fonts it has available, but it's a lot. Then, from there, you can do some adjusting to it. You're able to sort of curve, rotate, change, add some circular motions to that text as well.

Mark Nelson:

Is it kind of intuitive a little bit, like you're just playing with it-

Fiona Morrison:

Oh, super intuitive.

Mark Nelson:

... and you just kind of pick it up?

Fiona Morrison:

Super intuitive. But then, yeah, and what's really cool about this is that it can be connected wirelessly to something like a phone or a tablet, and someone can, with a stylus, you could write a word, draw a picture, sign your name, and on the spot, in a matter of seconds, have that engraved on something in front of you.

Mark Nelson:

Oh, jeez.

Fiona Morrison:

So that's cool. And that's with both of them too, so that's even the portable unit. You're at a show, someone's walking by, say they have commemorative piece-

Mark Nelson:

So it's like...

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And you talk about that in conjunction with the permanent jewelry.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

So you're at the craft mart, or the Halloween Fair, or whatever, and you got a booth, you're doing permanent jewelry, and your customer picks out a tag, you engrave their name on it, and you do permanent jewelry.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, right there on the spot, in a matter of seconds.

Mark Nelson:

That's pretty cool.

Fiona Morrison:

In fact, you could even teach your customers how to use this program. When I say it's intuitive and it's easy to use, you can sit down, and in a matter of seconds, you're good to go.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, that's cool.

Fiona Morrison:

And you're up and running with it. Another thing with this that's actually very cool, both for these tools and for the industry at large, is that the air purifier that comes with this-

Mark Nelson:

Oh, yeah.

Fiona Morrison:

... it's at about $400 price point. It's a HEPA filter, and it has about three settings. Something like this, you could use with a little torch and it would work.

Mark Nelson:

Oh, you can use it for different things?

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, because you can both hook it up to these units and it'll work automatically, or you can just use it on its own, put on the switch. You have a couple of powered settings you can do. It's really nice, it's really strong. Personally, I would use this for a soldering setup, and it's, again, it's really portable. It can fit in your hands, it's nice.

Mark Nelson:

Right, so this is one of those things that you really hope that they suck.

Fiona Morrison:

Exactly.

Mark Nelson:

Right? Because that's what you need it to do.

Fiona Morrison:

Exactly.

Mark Nelson:

Best Father's Day present I ever got was a vacuum cleaner. I walked around the house vacuuming going, "I hate this present, it sucks." So that's awesome, man. Is there anything else you can tell me about it? Sounds pretty awesome, both of them, and...

Fiona Morrison:

Honestly, it is. It's a really strong unit as well, and then, it just has so much versatility to it. And again, like I was saying earlier, with that price point, it's a fairly entry-level thing that you can attain. It's not something like some of our laser engravers that are on the market that are approaching 20 to $50,000, where it's like, "Okay, that would be cool, but it's not super attainable." It's so usable in so many different ways that people are utilizing currently. That makes it easier to do that yourself. People who might need to go out, find someone else who has one of these machines that they've been traditionally doing in order to use, they can now do that themselves, learn how to do all that, and make it work for them even more so.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, it's great, man. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm going to have to get my hands on one and start playing.

Fiona Morrison:

You really should, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

I also saw a laser engraver being used to lay out designs for hand engraving.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

Because, I mean, laser engraving and hand engraving do not look really at all alike. They're totally different, but transferring the designs onto metal to do hand engraving is challenging, and to use a laser engraver to mark out the plan and then go in by hand and do it, that's a great combination, man.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, I've seen Phil Scott, one of our tech representatives, I've actually seen a test that he was doing for a piece that he was going to be hand engraving, where he was testing doing some of that layout, and it was really cool to see. I was like, even just the design itself could be used. It's kind of fun seeing where you can take it.

Mark Nelson:

Oh, right on. Well, thanks for sharing that. I'm really excited, man. We are excited to be joined by our guest, Meaghan Young, founder of the Crested Butte Jewelry School, and the Sedona Metalsmithing School, and also the Jewelry Business School. She's a jeweler, designer, and business owner for 17 years. Meaghan has been instrumental in helping numerous jewelers start and grow their own jewelry businesses. So Meaghan, thank you for joining us today.

Meaghan Young:

Thank you so much for having me, Mark. I'm happy to be here.

Mark Nelson:

It's wonderful to have you, and we've been working together for quite some time now. When I became education coordinator years ago, you were one of the first people I reached out to, and we've been helping each other along the way. So how did you start your jewelry career?

Meaghan Young:

Well, I actually got started beading jewelry, and I wore a necklace that I had made to wear to a wedding to work one night, and I was a bartender at this really fancy bistro, and I had a full bar, the whole restaurant was full, and I sold the necklace off my neck to this woman at the bar who was eating. And then, I went down to the other side of the bar and these other two women asked me what that was all about, and I told them, and they both said, "Well, I was going to ask you about that necklace. Can you make me one?" And I said, "Sure." So I got their information, and that's how I got into jewelry making. I was actually a writer before that, that's what I went to school for.

Mark Nelson:

Excellent, and what got you into teaching?

Meaghan Young:

Well, I started teaching for the Center for the Arts here in Crested Butte, Colorado, and I think I was approached by them to put together a silversmithing class, so that's what I did. I started teaching for them, and did that for probably four years, and then opened the Crested Butte Jewelry School.

Mark Nelson:

Okay, and then I know that around COVID, you were one of the very first ones to start doing online classes. You almost, like, matter of like six months prior to everybody getting on board with that. What possessed you to start offering stuff online?

Meaghan Young:

I think it was because when I decided to go to jewelry school, I think I went in 2006, I had to go all the way across the country, and it was a three-month program, and I loved it, and it was amazing, and there was nothing online at that time. I really wanted to make it accessible to people who don't have access, and can't travel that far away, and spend that kind of investment in those kinds of things. I wanted to make it easy for them.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, it's a big investment. And that was like Blaine Lewis's New Approach School, wasn't it?

Meaghan Young:

Yes, yes. And at the time, it was in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He's moved it to-

Mark Nelson:

Oh, the old [inaudible 00:16:54].

Meaghan Young:

... Tennessee now, but yes, it was honestly, I really didn't know what I was getting into when I went there, but he trained me to be a jeweler, which is amazing.

Mark Nelson:

He's one of the best teachers, and I had the privilege of actually going to see the new school when it was pretty much finished.

Meaghan Young:

Oh, you did?

Mark Nelson:

And it's definitely a journey people should make, for sure.

Meaghan Young:

Yes. I mean, I've seen videos and things of it. It looks amazing.

Mark Nelson:

And since we're still on the teaching track, you've taught lots and lots of people. Do you have a favorite teaching story?

Meaghan Young:

I had this woman take my in-person course here in Crested Butte, it's five days, and she had been an accountant for 40 years, and had never done anything creative in her life. She had family members that were artists and things like that, but she had never done anything creative, and she just took the plunge, because she'd retired, and you should see what she makes now. She's all set up in her house, and she makes the most beautiful pieces. And I just love that story so much, because it doesn't matter how old you are, or what kind of career you have, or the fact that you don't think you're creative, everybody can be.

Mark Nelson:

100%, 100%.

Meaghan Young:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

You know, I used to teach a lot of classes here at Rio, and most of my students were retired accountants, scientists, business people, and it seems like a lot of those really detail-oriented professions really go very easily into jewelry making, you know what I mean?

Meaghan Young:

Yes.

Mark Nelson:

They're all about the details and the processes, and they just really want to figure things out.

Meaghan Young:

Yes, absolutely. They want to know how things work and the skill to do it. I have a lot of nurses and teachers, people, realtors in the medical field, all kinds, from all different fields, transitioning out of their careers into the jewelry field, and I love watching it. It's beautiful.

Mark Nelson:

It's a great thing, isn't it?

Meaghan Young:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

How do you run your schools? I was looking on your website and you have several, and you have a five-day course, online classes, in-person at two different locations, too. You got Crested Butte and Sedona. So Sedona is pretty new, right?

Meaghan Young:

Yes, yes. My first class was in April down there, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, so do people usually just go to your website and kind of find the place and the course that they're looking for?

Meaghan Young:

I speak to a lot of people on the phone, so I do, for my retreats, people do have to fill out a form. I ask them some questions so I can get to know them, see if it's right for them. And also, the group dynamic, because we stay in the same house together. There's only five of us, including me, and I'm not here to just sell, to sell. I want to make sure that I can help you, and I offer different things.

So I want to make sure that what I'm offering aligns with what you want, what your dream is, really, if you have a business dream or maybe you just want to have it as a hobby. So I do speak to a lot of people on the phone, and the workshops, they just sell out. Oh, my gosh, they sell so fast. I just created one last week, it was sold out in four days. So some people will call me and get some clarification on that, but most of the time, people just book those. And the online classes, they just sell too, usually.

Mark Nelson:

And the online classes, I was trying to do a little bit of research before we talked, and that's kind of like a continuous thing, isn't it?

Meaghan Young:

Well, they get lifetime access, and tons of free trainings too that don't even... I teach them ways to make jewelry that don't involve a torch, because, you know, it takes time to learn the skills, to practice the skills, and I want people to build confidence, so I show them other ways of making jewelry also.

But it is a series, so there's like the intro to silversmithing and then the advanced class, which is ring fabrication and cabochon stone setting. And then, I actually have a goldsmithing class after that also. So yes, it can be a progression. You can start with the first one or you can buy them in a bundle, but usually, everybody that purchases the first course keeps going, because it's cabochons, right? Everyone loves turquoise, and they want to make turquoise jewelry, as we all do.

Mark Nelson:

So yeah, I was on your website, I was looking through there, and you had a certificate, and it said, "Rebel Millionaire Coach." It was like, "Okay, anything rebel, I'm all about." I got to know what that rebel's all about, so what's that certificate about?

Meaghan Young:

I am also a rebel, and that certificate is from one of the mentors that I have. Well, I'm not working with her currently, but I did in the past, and I took her coaching program. So it's a certification for life and business coaching, and it's called Rebel Millionaire Coach. Ultimately, it's all about making your own rules in life and business. We don't have to do things because it's an industry standard, for example, or anything like that. I've had to make all of my own rules in life, honestly.

And so when things, when doors are shut, or for example, when I wanted to start my boutique service design studio here in Crested Butte, Colorado, there were two jewelers, both older gentlemen selling their businesses, and I spoke with both of them. One wanted $1 million, one wanted $250,000, and at the time I had saved up, I think $15,000 ,and I was like, "You know what? I'm going to do this on my own. I don't care what it takes. I'm going to make my own rules for this." And I did, and it's been extremely successful. So that's what being a rebel is all about, right?

Mark Nelson:

I love it, and it correlates, because when I teach jewelry making, students are always like, "I want to know the right way to do it," and I'm like, "The right way to do it is the way you like to do it." Yeah, there are some certain rules that have to be met, but for the most part, you ask 10 jewelers how to do one thing, you're going to get 10 different answers, and they're all going to be right. You know what I mean?

Meaghan Young:

Absolutely, yes.

Mark Nelson:

The important thing is finding your own way, so there's that correlation between making jewelry and its processes, and then everything else in life. You know what you need to do, find your own way.

Meaghan Young:

Exactly, yes.

Mark Nelson:

That's awesome. Of all the classes you teach, you teach a lot, what's your favorite to teach? I know that's a tricky question, that's deliberate.

Meaghan Young:

Well, I really do love to teach in metalsmithing, but ultimately ,I love to help people make money. That's my favorite thing to do. I love helping people succeed at business. I'm really, really good at business, and it just makes me so happy. And people text me, my clients, they text me. I just got a text message the other day from this beautiful woman, Eliza, who's been in my programs, has come from my retreat, and she made $10,000 last month.

Mark Nelson:

That's awesome.

Meaghan Young:

And she sent me an image of it, and that's not the first time that's happened. The women, right now, it's not only for women, by the way, it's just that there are no men in there yet, but the women, the designers in my business group, they're making 10, 20, $30,000 a month. So it's absolutely incredible. And you know, these are people just like me, who I was once a single mom, they're single moms in there, they're changing careers. That's my favorite thing, is helping people create not just the business, but the life. It's about the lifestyles. Like, "How do you want to experience life every day? How do you want life to work for you? What do you want to do every single day?"

Because I used to work chaotically, and I changed all that because I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live like that anymore. So I closed my boutique, I started working from home. I started doing the online classes, but moreover that, I went hiking every day, I went paddle boarding, I go skiing. I enjoy my life, because I didn't enjoy it for very long time prior to that, because I worked so hard.

Mark Nelson:

Right.

Meaghan Young:

So this is really about creating a business that serves how you want to live.

Mark Nelson:

Making your own rules.

Meaghan Young:

Exactly.

Mark Nelson:

Being a rebel.

Meaghan Young:

Exactly, yes.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah. Well, thank you very much for being here and talking with us, and wish you great success. And of course, if you ever need anything, you can always email me, call me, do whatever, and I'm here to help you and your students.

Meaghan Young:

Thank you. I'm actually meeting with them all tomorrow, so I will let them know you said that.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, give them a shout-out for me, say, "Mark says hi."

Meaghan Young:

I will. Thank you so much, Mark.

Mark Nelson:

Well, thank you, Meaghan. For our next segment, let's talk a little bit about polishing tools and the ways jewelers can use wheels and buffs to make their design shine, and bright and shiny. And this is a topic I always get when I was on the tech team, I got this polishing, every day, question. And when I teach at the school, all the students are like, "How do I polish this?" And here's the thing, it's such a huge technique. There's so many different ways you can do it, right? And since we have this really nice sponsor, Dedeco, I'd like to start with that, because that is one of the easiest and best ways to do it. And we're just talking really about polishing jewelry and making it bright and shiny, right?

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And so they have all sorts of rubber wheels, and bristle discs, and things like that, and I use them all the time. They're actually my primary polishing tool. So what I'll do in my own work, and I'll start with sandpaper, because my favorite go-to, and then hit the Dedeco wheels to bring it up to a polish. And then, in that last very little bit, I'll hit it with the polishing compound in a wheel. When I started off in the business, I was working the bench, and that's all I had, were polishing wheels and compounds. And I would walk out of the studio at the end of the day just covered, covered in compound.

I'd wear masks and all kinds of stuff, and it just wouldn't help. So I tried to do as much polishing with the rubber Dedeco wheels as possible, and then that last little bit, hit it with the buff. And one of the things that people have always asked me, it's like, "How do you know where to start? What do you start with?" It's just polishing is a method of going from a coarse grit to a fine grit progressively, right? Anywhere from 80 grit all the way up to 2,000 grit or microns. Don't ask me about microns, because that's totally different.

And it's the same process, no matter what you use. It could be grinding wheels, sandpaper, rubber wheels, compounds, all that. It's all the same process. And so what I tell them is, "You know, start with the sandpaper. Get it to where you kind of want it." The bristle discs are really nice, because if you have something that's textured, you can get into those little textures and little areas a little bit easier than you would with a hard rubber wheel or anything like that.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, I can say the same. Personally, in my own work, I tend to use them a lot. I do a lot of larger sculptural pieces, I guess you could say, and belt buckles, and things like that. And I found where. really, those sunbursts and those bristle discs excel is I do a lot of repoussé with nickel, which is a whole endeavor of itself. And doing the finishing of that, really trying to get in those creases and crevices, and get a nice polish on something that is a metal that doesn't traditionally clean up as nicely as something like silver will, having a tool that's going to be able to get in all those creases and crevices and really get that metal looking nice and shiny, it's excellent, especially in a larger surface where it's already a little bit of a struggle. You don't want to get in there and do everything by hand. It makes it just that much easier to do that.

Mark Nelson:

And a lot of times you can't, and that's where those little points come in.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, mm-hmm.

Mark Nelson:

I think they have some that are solid rubber and you can sharpen them.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, those are excellent.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, I love those, man.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And people always ask me, it was like, "I want to do this as quickly as possible." Well, polishing just isn't quick, [inaudible 00:30:00]-

Fiona Morrison:

No, it's always, it's the longest part of the process, no matter what you're doing.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah, so what I tell people is definitely have a lot of mandrels.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

One particular item is 333105, that's the item number. You get six for about five bucks, and buy four packs, because the more mandrels you have, and you have different setups, that's what's going to increase your speed. The bristle discs are not fast, they're just efficient, you know? So if you have different sizes, it's going to help already set up. You're go a little bit faster, and you can never have enough mandrels, man. You just really can't.

Fiona Morrison:

No, they end up on a specific disc or just a specific bit that it's perfectly to what you need and you never want to remove it. So it just sits there until the five projects you know have to have it for, and that's never being removed. It's always going to stay there until that bit is gone.

Mark Nelson:

So one of the things I show my students at school is that we talk about this, and those little bit harder rubber wheels, they're kind of square, you know?

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, mm-hmm.

Mark Nelson:

We start with that, and then I said, "Okay, this is the size they come in." And I'm like, and I hold up the next one, I go, "It gets a little smaller," and then I hold up another one, and it's like, it's a little smaller. And that's why you have all these mandrels, because if you have a really large wheel, brand new, and you have a really small space, you can grind through that whole entire wheel to get it to fit. Or as you use the wheels, rotate them out. So you start with one, then you end up with two, and then three, and four, and five, just progressively smaller sizes, and that really speeds things up.

Fiona Morrison:

Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, bits are one of those things that even though they come in very specific shapes, you sort of start to shape it to your purpose of use over time.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah.

Fiona Morrison:

Then, it's like any other tool that you're using, it's something that becomes very customized to your work, simply because of how you use it.

Mark Nelson:

Yep, exactly.

Fiona Morrison:

And then, you can use it more and use it more effectively.

Mark Nelson:

Do you have any other favorite ways to polish and bring things up to a bright shine?

Fiona Morrison:

It depends. I'd say the hard thing about polishing, and that's what makes it such a challenging thing to get into, it's really no wrong way to do it. Depending on the look you're going for, you can use anything. I know when I first figured out about our pumice wheels, for instance, that really stepped up my game when I was using those, because you can remove metal, but still keep that shine that you're going for to get an idea.

There's just really so many ways to do it. I wouldn't say there's any one polishing way that I do things. From everything from when one of those small Foredom lathes that I have with some of those bigger bristles that I'll use for just doing a general starter polish, get rid of some of that build-up, fire scale, anything on there just to get started, to some of our really small burrs that I would use for cleaning up a seat that you're cutting for a faceted stone. There's so many different things I'll do, and being on our casting team especially, we do a lot of grinding, you're doing a lot of clipping, you're doing a lot of grinding. You're finishing off the sprues on a lot of pieces and you have to go fast.

And I would say some of those 3M, those big wheels we have, you'd be amazed how you can use those from just cleaning off a surface, smoothing a surface, even something like a signet ring, really getting that surface nice and flat, something like that you can use. There's so many ways to do it that it really just comes down to playing around and figuring out-

Mark Nelson:

What you like.

Fiona Morrison:

... what your preference is. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

The most frustration is when a student or somebody will have a scratch in something and they immediately start with like 400-grit wheel or something like that.

Fiona Morrison:

Oh, no.

Mark Nelson:

And they spend hours, and hours, and hours trying to get that scratch out. They're doing the right process, but they're starting way too late. You know what I mean? You have to look at what you have to remove, and you go right to the most coarse level that you can to remove the scratch, with not causing more damage, right?

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And the faster you can progress through the grits and the steps, that's where you're going to make up your speed. Spending four hours with the wrong grit, and I've done it, I [inaudible 00:34:39]-

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, we've all done it.

Mark Nelson:

You know, that's where your time's sucked up. And one of the other things I like to share is when I get asked, "How do I know what to use, when? When do I use a square wheel or a bristle disc?" And the only thing I could come up with is if your form and shape is... I call it hard, like smooth, graphic, rigid, that's what I call hard.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

Then, you use a hard material.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah.

Mark Nelson:

If your forms are nice, and soft, and undulating, more organic maybe, or something like that, that's when you would want to use something soft.

Fiona Morrison:

Exactly.

Mark Nelson:

Because if you use that hard wheel on your soft form, it's going to flatten it out. So yeah, just like you said, man, there are so many different ways to do it.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, mm-hmm. And an interesting thing that you just reminded me of when you mentioned, "Oh, you have a scratch you're trying to get out," one of the, I'd say, more interesting tips that I learned along the way is sometimes, in certain instances, the best way to polish is actually not the polish. It's one of the best tricks that I think I really do use a lot nowadays is using a burnisher and just-

Mark Nelson:

I knew you were going to go there, I knew you were going to go there.

Fiona Morrison:

... and just pushing that back together. Something like a margin roller, and reshaping that metal so that when you're then going into polish, maybe you can start it out at that 440-

Mark Nelson:

You know, it doesn't always work-

Fiona Morrison:

... because there's a different process for getting there.

Mark Nelson:

... but it's worth a try.

Fiona Morrison:

It doesn't always work, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And your burnisher has to be highly polished.

Fiona Morrison:

It has to be highly polished, but it's one of those-

Mark Nelson:

And you can move that metal, it's like putty.

Fiona Morrison:

Exactly, but it's one of those things where when it comes to the process you use the polish, really, it's just how you're getting there. There's a million different ways you can do that.

Mark Nelson:

Yeah. Keep practicing, keep working it, keep asking questions. Ask your buddy, watch what they're doing.

Fiona Morrison:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Nelson:

And I still do that. I've been doing this for 30 years, and I'm like, "Okay, that's cool," you know? So that's about all I can think about for polishing. I just can't say enough about the Dedeco wheels. They've gotten me out of some tight jams, for sure.

Fiona Morrison:

Oh, yeah, that's for sure. That's all for today's show. Thank you to Meaghan Young from the Crested Butte and Sedona Metalsmithing Schools for joining us today. We'd also like to thank today's sponsor, Dedeco Abrasives, a leader in precision tools from shaping and perfecting your joy designs. Dedeco Abrasives are essential additions to any bench. Now through the end of September, use code riodedeco to get 30% off the Dedeco Sunburst All-in-One Radial Disc Kit and the Sunburst Deluxe Bristle Disc Point and Pin Polishing Kit. Do you have any questions you'd like answered on the show or want to submit ideas for future episodes? Email us at podcasts@riogrande.com. Until next time, thank you for listening and have a great day.