In 2020 I lost my rental but had luckily just bought an Airstream. Decided to be a full time RV’er and sell online. Tore out the dinette and made this “temporary” bench! Four years later and theres’s little I can’t accomplish! Different view every few weeks/months. This is in Eagle Nest New Mexico where I’ll be all summer!
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That looks cool. Can you turn the camera around so we can see where you live. Thanks…Rob
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Way to move with the flow. Beautiful view!
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Oh My GOSH! I now have SERIOUS STUDIO ENVY!!
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I also have an Airstream trailer (1956 Bubble) that I go down to Arizona and New Mexico for the winter. Mine isn’t big enough to work in and I really rather enjoy working outside in the full light. I work with pure silver using chase repose and only use hand tools
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I used to do a lot more work outside but it’s been so windy everywhere I go I moved most of it inside. I have a Covington sander outside for metal and stone shaping.
The newer Airstreams have so much light and ventilation which is why I got it. Other box trailers are are pretty dark inside and don’t have half the window footage.
THis was supposed to me my mock up and I want to get a custom one piece bench top to fit in there but so far it’s doing all I need.
I usually sit and make a hair clip and then go for a short hike and then come back and make a pair of earrings. I like the eye exercise going from close work to long distances. Going for little hikes during the day keeps this old body lively too. Sitting all day at a bench isn’t my style.
I made over fifty of these copper key fogs that I gave away from a historic old bar that burned down but I salvaged the copper from scrap.
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Great work! Thanks for sharing…Rob
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This is one of those times when I’m so envious of you folks in the States! It would be a much more difficult option in the UK.
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Amazing! Plus you’ve got a great market in NM and Az. I recognize the country view. I used to live in NM and am moving back… Congrants and enjoy…
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This is our very near goal and was wondering how id set up a shop.
I tried so hard to move us there. Unsure why billy wasnt on board gucen his family is in OKC.
Espero que puedes transladarte alli, Bienvenidos a Nuevo Mexico.
I hope that you will be able to move there, Welcome to New Mexico!
NM has great agate and other gems that can be made into jewelry. There even is sunstone of unsually high calcium content (bytownite). Turquoise has been mined out from Los Cerillos, some is still found at the Chino open pit copper mine but rarely… the area is off limits to collectors as copper mining is still active. But there are so many other rare and beautiful crystals to be found. I have specimens of natural green crystal quartz that is very rare, that are in small crystal aggregates… found in the same area where I found blue quartz crystals and blue banded agates. I slabbed some of the blue banded ones for cufflinks. All the resources for making jewelry are there. Rio Grande is on the West side of Albuquerque. Southwestern Gem and Minerals shop sells good stuff at very decent prices… I’ve gone there several times since I’ve lived in Albuquerque 35 years ago.
I still haven’t moved… moving will be a challenge since our house is filled with 40 year’s worth of stuff that has to be reduced down to 30%… I’ve been spending too much time and resources travelling to Europe…I hope to relocate before August of 2026.
Actually Cerrillos turquoise is still producing! A good friend has been mining it for some time and always has some! He even struck some cool white variscite there too, White Angel. Have a look! www.cerrillosturquoise.com/
I’ve been up to a mine there too. Good Cerillos turquoise is getting hard to find. I took a mine tour and found some fragments and also lead zinc ore. Lots of artisan mining is going on but not much robins egg blue stuff is left. Both rough and polished samples are available to buy at several rock shops in Los Cerillos and Madrid but it’s pricey. The whole area had once been claimed for an open pit copper mine but it was blocked by Santa Fe County because of the lack of water resources. I’m actually more interested in the geology of the area. Turquoise veins were produced by secondary supergene oxidation of copper/lead/zinc mineralization from the intrusion of alkalic monzonites. Typical hydrothermal and secondary enrichment…the monzonitic intrusions of the Ortiz and San Pedro Mountains south of Los Cerillos are gold bearing. Active gold mining is taking place in the Ortiz Mountains. Almost all of the land is privately held. Buying turquoise bearing land at Los Cerillos was quoted to me as costing 5 to 10K per acre. That was initially tempting but I’m too old to be a miner.
There is a chain of alkalic intrusions stretching from South Dakota to Southern New Mexico that came up as the crust relaxed from compressive forces that pushed up the Rocky Mountains. These alkalic rocks have something more valuable than gold and silver now- rare earths, like neodymium that are indispensible for super strong magnets in electric vehicules and other electronic applications. The mountain pass mine in the California Mojave is the only US producer of rare earths. China has 90% of the world’s reserves. The ore deposits in New Mexico are abundant but too small to mine commercially. A new mine is opening in Wyoming in the Bearlodge Mountains north of Sundance WY… near the South Dakota border. It’s part of the Black Hills. Newmont had claimed the area years ago for gold, but now a Canadian mining company has started a processing plant and is in the early stage of mining by open pit. I found turquoise there also, of robin’s egg blue, but it was too crumbly for gems without being stabilized with plastic resin… I was lucky to have been given a tour years ago of the area by a contract exploration geologist who was putting down bore holes. He had core samples of highly unusual rocks. He gave me a sample of carbonatite which is underground and had brought up the gold and rare earths 50 million years ago. Carbonatite is extremely unusual as it’s calcium and sodium carbonate of deep igneous origin…Rare earth mineralization is associated with carbonatitie pipes.
It was actually Todd Brown that took me to the mines in Los Cerillos… Robin’s egg blue is very rare now, most of it is green as on the website
I was living in the desert in Nevada and started buying silver rounds from the workers at a local silver mine. It started going up in price from $5 and I bought quite a few when it got up to $15. It went on up to $50 when the Hunt brothers tried to capture the market. It crashed to $5 and I was under water on it. So, I took them to my anvil and hammered them, annealed them on my kitchen stove and hammered them again. I then started making hair clips and earrings with a worn out flat tip screwdriver, nail set and a center punch.
I just got this photo from my daughter at the ceremony where she graduated as a doctor. She would help me in gathering wood and I guess this must have been a gift for that help.
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Bmwdog,
You obviously have not gotten the memo that states that you need at least a $500 bench and a minimum of $2000 worth of tools to make any silver jewelry. The Native American silversmiths also failed to get that memo, and you know what happened to their genre…fair warning! -royjohn
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My daughter updated me on the hair clip. I had forgotten that I had made a pair of earrings to go along with the clip. One was a tree and the other was a stump. She evidently lost the first stump earring and had me make another one. As you can see they dont match as I am sure this was a long distance request for replacement. Yeah the work was pretty rough for ‘jewelry’ in this forum but people that get your work seem to love it even if it isn’t four star with diamonds. My work got better after many years but still the old stuff still lives on. I hope it ‘saws’ through the rough spots in her physiatrics profession.
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