Sunday, March 20, 2011

March’s Topic: "Best Childhood Years Memory"

My Grandfather was a tacit man. He was a notary in the pre-war Hungary , then demoted by the Communist regime and served as a clerk in the city hall of Miskolc - he was lucky to find employment instead of deportation. All in all he was living an uneventful life when we "met". But inside his round, bald head there was another world, filled with distant , exotic places the latest advancements of science and technology and a talent and passion for woodcarving.

The only carving I have from my Grandfather, István Majoros. © Pal Gooz 2011

He was the ideal companion for a child like me, who was living wild adventures in his head about exotic animals , treasure hunting and an unsatisfiable curiosity about how things worked. We both loved solitude and liked to share quiet hours, when we both - I believe - lived our own intense second life inside our heads.

One of our favorite past time was to go to a magical place called Lillafüred, near Miskolc. The woods and the lake there were inexhaustible sources of entertainment, constantly feeding my adventure hungry mind , filled with Pirates, Indians, fairies, hidden treasures and long forgotten ruins of never existed castles. ( There is a real one there, but that is not ruins, so does not count ).

Lillafüred : Palace, Hámori lake, and the surrounding forest

© copyright Civertan Grafikai Stúdió Civertan

Sometimes we just walked the narrow paths between the woods , but from time to time, we took the small train that took us on scenic route to place called Ómassa ( meaning Old Smelter ).

The train . (original: A LÁEV vonata Lillafüred állomáson by VT )

From there we would walk towards Újmassa ( New Smelter) to find the the ruins of the old blast furnace and forge that was built in 1813. ( Honestly , at that time I had no idea I would become a jeweler, melting metal in my own little furnace).

The Old Smelter at Újmassa (Az újmassai őskohó by Szalax )

We would often go there with the the purpose that I would make drawings of the place, and we were equipped accordingly with sketchbooks and pencils and erasers. I loved drawing the old smelter. I have no idea why I was so attracted to that ruin. It may be that I always liked abandoned buildings which I could inhabit with the products of my fantasy. Additionally , the function and use of that smelter fascinated me beyond imagination. I wanted to understand how those people extracted iron from stone. Of course at that time - early 70ies - there was little explanation about the place. So I listened to the explanations that my Grandfather provided. Neither he, nor I were very well schooled in the chemistry and technology of iron smelting, of course, and his lectures always left gaps in my understanding. Maybe this was another reason I returned to the place so willingly every time.

Some days I had no motivation to do sketches and I went on expeditions to discover the building and the surrounding " jungle". In the surrounding forest people still produced charcoal and lime in the old fashioned way.

Charcoal pile ( Public domain) (This photo was taken by someone else, somewhere else)

On some other occasions, we just sat there, silently, side by side with my grandfather and was enjoying the almost supernatural beauty of the place. We would be sitting there for an hour or longer, speaking very little, that left enough time for our minds to wander wherever it was taken by our imagination.

The Old Smelter at Újmassa

© copyright Civertan Grafikai Stúdió Civertan

Those were the times of peace and freedom.

           Please visit my friends' blogs, to read about their memories:

          Andes Cruz: www.andescruz.wordpress.com
          Kathleen Krucoff http://mysticalmythicalmetalwork.wordpress.com/

          Laura Flavin: http://modernbirdjewelry.blogspot.com/
          Wendy Kelly: http://www.wendykianakelly.com/
          Stephanie Nocito Clark http://thethinkingsofacoldweathergirl.blogspot.com/
          Brad Severtson: http://hammeringoutaliving.blogspot.com/
          Andrea Bell: http://feathersfreesiasandfishingtackle.blogspot.com/
          Natsuko Hanks: http://jewelrybynatsuko.blogspot.com/
          Shaun Young http://shaunyoung.ca/
          Beth Cyr http://bcyrjewelry.blogspot.com/

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Website Building Adventures of a Greenhorn

Then came the moment of truth- some 4 years ago - when I could not avoid the confrontation with the monster called Internet: I needed a WEBSITE!

This series will tell what I learned ( hint: very little) during this time. It may be very useful for those who are similarly clueless in the jungle where bloodthirsty Domains ( Worldwildwebiscus domainicus var. comii, var. orgii etc.) and highly ranking Google officiers fight each other for survival every day. Don't even ask about the many other horrors of the place....yet.

I am a hardcore DIY guy. I go into every challenge headstrong and I am not afraid of learning new things in order to achieve my goals. But setting up a simple website makes me sweat, have nightmares and so far has defeated every one of my attempts. Maybe not this time!

It sure looks like a costruction site hard at work. If only I knew what I am doing...

   How hard it can be to put up some information and pictures about my work , then sit back and allow Google to lead visitors to my site? At least how hard it could be for a person who - at his early twenties - learned programming in Basic and Pascal, simply because he refused to make things manually , when a computer could do the same thing more precisely and faster. Sure enough I spent more time learning the basics of computers and then the not so basics of programming, than I would have with doing the chores manually.

Intermezzo: The first computer I encountered was a Commodore 64 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 ) . This little thing featured a staggering amount of memory ( 64 kilobytes ; compare today's 2 gigabytes = about 3 million C64s , hehe)

   But - I thought at that time, nearly 3 decades ago - that learning programing would be a lesson well worth in the future. Hehe, I had not the vision to see how quickly digital technology would grow over my head!

    For the first few years I was doing OK. No internet at that time, at least not in Hungary. There were a few guys messing with bulletin boards (do not even ask what they were- I read this word in magazines). But really no internet - no problem.

    I wrote a few smaller applications for fun or for making life easier where a lot of calculation had to be done. At that time I killed computer viruses with my bare hands. (that spread on floppy disks - remember those? )We were in the DOS era and I had free acces to the pityfully small amount of system data: so when I saw funny text appearing, I just deleted those things.

   Then Windows came, but I still had much of the hardware and software under control. If I needed a new controller, I purchased one and installed.

   Internet exlpoded into my life and I took the new terms like pills: web, browser, e-mail.

   My computers escaped my control - I don't even know how to give myself full administrator rights to my Windows 7. The firewalls and virus scanners have complete control over my my life. When they say things like this: "Warning! A program is trying to access the internet ! Do you want to allow cegerata.exe to acces the internet ", I am speechless. Mostly for the reason I have not a clue of what I am opening my virtual doors to.

Sure, I still can unplug and plug in most of the hardware - if I can figure out what I should buy . The latter part is the real challange these days. I am not trying to say that my mental capabilities have significantly decreased, rather my priorities changed. That is OK, I guess.

I think , at this moment, that my website will look something like this. Unless I change my mind. Or scew up big time. Or something.

To be continued at a date that I will determine flexibly...=) Love and Peace to All

Thursday, December 30, 2010

How it is made: A custom wedding ring for an old engagement ring. Part 3.

The last part.

The benchpin is probably the most ingenious and usable tool in a jewelry studio. I discover a new use for it everyday. This time I realized that I can use it to hold the freshly attached sprue upside down, squeezed into the benchpin's slot and work on the other end, until the wax at the ring shank completely solidifies. The shank affixed to the sprue, then can be united with the head. After smoothing the welding area , I removed the little bridge between the two shanks, that helped me to prevent breaking the delicate wax structure.. Holding the wax against a light source, allows me to judge the thickness and evenness of the whole contraption, last time before casting, and make some last minute adjustments if needed.

The wax model is then completed with sprues, that will allow the molten metal fill the mold. The models are attached to a rubber base and the whole "tree' is embedded into a plaster like material, called investment. The investment is placed into a furnace to make the plaster hard and melt the encased wax out of it; hence the name of "lost wax casting" . The wax leaves a cavity system inside the hardened investment and provides a mold for the molten metal. After about 8 hours of firing , all residues of the wax are burned out of the mold and it is ready for casting. After casting the rings, the investment material is removed (white stuff on the picture ) and the the result becomes visible. This is the moment of truth. This is the moment, when it turns out whether or not the work of many hours is resulted in a good casting, or have to be started over.

The rest of the process is only briefly summarized here: After the castings were cut off the tree, the engagement ring was fitted and soldered to the guard/wedding ring. The surfaces were filed and sanded and polished until they took on the desired final finish. Then I set the raw diamond cubes and made some final touch up on the surfaces. The ring is finished and ready to be shipped. In this setting , the weak parts of the old ring are fortified and the diamond is protected from the majority of blows, that are also the most dangerous : the sideways hits.

The finished wedding suit. I used a similar process for the groom's wedding band.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

How it is made: A custom wedding ring for an old engagement ring. Part 2.

I used the lost wax casting process to create the ring guard/wedding ring for the bride.

First I choose a wax blank, in this case a Matt's purple for no particular reason other than, that I had this piece that was the perfect thickness.

Next I marked every possible dimensions of the design on the blank, using dividers and scrapers, carbide pencils, knives... whatever. Since some of the marks will be carved away, I either redraw them as I proceed or extend the markings onto areas, that will not be last . This is most important for the crucial dimensions that determine the symmetry, centers and borders, that will be pretty hard to establish again when the simple geometry of the blank will transform into the more complex geometry of the design.

For rough shaping I used a handpiece extension, that allows me to position and hold the cylindrical bit in fixed angle ( 90 degrees in this case).

End of the roughing up, onto the more delicate free hand shaping.

I carefully traced the measurements and outlines of the design and fitted the green top part , that I previously carved, to the forming shank.
Then , using a jewelers saw, I cut out the tapered profile shape.

More sawing: to remove the middle part of the shank and shape the tiny columns that will support the top part.

Using jeweler's saw, blades, files and abrasive papers drill bits and whoknowswhat I shaped the shank and fitted it to the top part. Then I smoothed the surface to a decent finish . Here are my favorite abrasives: 3M microfinish films, an old shirt and nylon stockings. The interesting thing is the sudden color change of the model, no miracle, here is what happened: I finished it and the casting went wrong. Although not very often, this kind of things happen . So I had to remake the model. At some point I decided, that I would continue the process explanation using the new model, that I made from a green colored wax blank.

To be continued>>>

Monday, December 27, 2010

How it is made: A custom wedding ring for an old engagement ring. Part 1.

This series is to offer you a sneak peak to the behind the scenes events that lead to the creation of a custom piece of jewelry.

This story starts with an engagement: the young man proposed to her lady with his grandmother's ring. The ring is a diamond solitaire, from the early 19's , made by the famous Jabel company. The ring shows the impact of time , but held up nicely during the nearly 100 years, undoubtedly due to extremely high quality and the die pressing fabrication process that Jabel developed. Nonetheless, the metal is thinned and weakened, as well as the diamond has a large number of chips and abrasions. It would not have been prudent to just make a simple band to fit this ring, because the old diamond solitaire was at a point , where it could easily snap , or the diamond may break without warning at any time.

In situations like this , we usually suggest a complete overhaul of the ring and the diamond: The thin parts - in this case the head and the bottom of the shank would need to be re-built or fortified and the prongs re-tipped. The diamond would have to be re-cut - if possible - or replaced. The customers did not want to alter the original ring, which can be easily understood given the sentimental value of the original ring. Re-cutting this size of diamond would have probably resulted in a very small stone.

Therefore I proposed a design, where the engagement ring would be built around with the wedding ring , similar to a ring guard, but of course more organically united. They also wanted me to create the grooms band in a manner that they would be different, but refer to each other at the same time. To make matters a bit more complicated the lady also bought an engagement ring for her fiance from me . This ring featured a raw diamond crystal.

We agreed that the common reference would be the use of raw diamond crystals in both wedding rings.

In the next parts I will show how these ideas were turned into a beautiful wedding suit.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Kaleidoscope: Thomasin Durgin a.k.a. Metalriot stretching the boundaries

      Thomasin Durgin's latest installations dealing with the current oil disaster in the Mexican gulf raised the old questions in me : Where is the border between art and jewelry, or is there any? Is art in general functional? Is jewelry in particular functional? What if a piece of art is manifested as a piece of jewelry? Can it be functional without being wearable? As I was writing this post, I discovered the latest entry of Thomasin's blog where she is asking similar questions. This is not only interesting, but it also shows how extremely well she communicates every aspects of her thoughts to the viewer.

    In short, I think (art)jewelry and art in general is functional: They always carry a message. Jewelry in particular can be used to make this message particularly significant and personal. After all you could put that thing inside your personal space, making a very intimate connection. But then sometimes an artist have such an important message, that overrides the wearability requirement and uses the (possible) attachment of the object to the body as an additional layer of meaning.

    Well, without any further blahbla, here it is through examples from Metalriot:

The first one would be a perfectly wearable ring with a pleasing look, if it was not for the "spill" ! I personally would love to wear it and feel frustrated that I don't even have a chance. Do I need to explain any further ( I will be happy to, just leave a comment)? Did you know that the epoxy used for the ring is entirely made of mineral oil?

© Metalriot Ring a Day 151/365

You can wear this one, or even create one for yourself as a powerful demonstration of your commitment to save our planet, important natural resources (we live in a plastic world, that is made from oil!) and future generations of Homo "sapiens" . I think this is the one that perfectly fits the category ( Oh , I hate categories) of conceptual jewelry -(What the hell is THAT?).

Another conceptual piece , that can be wearable - IMHO not as much as to convey your identification with the cause, but as a reminder, how deeply we depend on oil and how far behind we are with the technology to use it wisely. I think every CEO, shareholder and owner of every drilling Co, refinery and automobile factory should carry one 24/7.

NO, no , nope! She is not crazy and she is more than capable of making quite beautiful and perfectly wearable items:) Visit her Flickr or her blog to see more after these :

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Walk

Today we had a walk Downtown,...

© Marc Osborn/The Western Front. All rights reserved. Originally published on Flickr.

History is real in this town...

.................................. times of struggle, hopeless days of darkness,...

© Photo was originally published by lazyapple.

of romantic alleys and salty wharfs.

.................. ........................ ... restart from scratch over and over.

© Joe Nienstedt. All rights reserved. Originally published on Flickr.

.................................................................................with success on the alleys of creation.

from gallery to gallery...

(and some horrid mishaps as well).

........................ in gold and set a f..king huge diamond between the pincers...

Pal Gooz Jewelry