What is the best material for a floor in a jewelry workshop? I use
gold and platinum and would like to use a flooring that the dust did
not get ground into.
Does anyone know what was done in old world shops in Europe?
What is the best material for a floor in a jewelry workshop?
Oh, there was an extensive conversation about this in the last year
or two. I just searched for it, didn’t find it, but there are also
conversations about flooring in 2008 and 2004.
I used epoxy resin.
The old floor was rough concrete, the epoxy gave me a smooth,
seamless floor & no open joints, even at the walls, very sweepable,
repairable, off white. (I also build wooden boats so get the epoxy
resin in five gallon size. Personal preference is System 3 Epoxy,
but once you buy pumps for a particular ratio it is expensive to
change brands.) Old World: Wood flooring was really the only option
they had available.
M Chapman
Does anyone know what was done in old world shops in Europe?
Some European shops cover the floor with steel grid panels. Each
panel sits loosely in a frame screwed to the floor. Sweeps fall
through the panels and are collected periodically by lifting the
panels. The steel grid scrapes the soles of your shoes as you walk
around the shop. Also, stones don’t bounce as far when dropped. Every
couple of years the framing members are unscrewed to get to any dust
that found its way under them.
Story told me by one of my instructors: His father’s shop in Belgium
was covered with just such a panel system. One of the jewelers
dropped a smallish stone. When he lifted the grid under his bench it
wasn’t there. So they lifted the panels adjacent, it wasn’t there
either. They lifted each panel in the shop and couldn’t fine the
stone, and it hadn’t bounced into any of the places they looked. A
year or so later when they removed the framing strips to recover the
sweeps they found the stone. It somehow had gotten lodged under one
of the framing strips.
Elliot Nesterman
ajoure.net
During the seventies in England when the gold price skyrocketed, I
just googled1970 to 1980. In 1970 gold was about $50 an ounce, rose
to $200 in the mid 1970s then in 1979 rose to $800 before quickly
falling to $300.
During that period a lot of jewellers workshops closed and companies
were formed who would offer to replace the wooden floors of long
established workshops, possibly hundreds of years old, most of whom
had no proper floor covering.
The floors would be burnt and refined and areas below would be
vacuumed, some times there would be small neat piles of filings
directly under where workbenches had been.
The floors were replaced for free, the companies ‘cleaned up’! It is
said that the price rise was artificially manipulated by a
consortium, excluding the Saudis and other OPEC countries who were
buying gold with the money from the OPEC petrol price hike.
The consortium members all sold when the price reached $800.
Silver also rose going from about 50 cents an ounce in the late 70s
to $25 in 1980 when it dropped drastically, it is said Bunter Hunt
bought as much silver as he could before he bankrupted his company as
others sold vast amounts of silver.
I had a ‘smart’ friend who made GBP6000 in a day buying old silver
then lost GBP8000 a few days later when the price tumbled.
There were queues around Johnson Matthey Bullion Dealers like cinema
queues of people selling their old bits and pieces. A lot of
beautiful old silver was melted!
David Cruickshank.
Australia
My first choice is polished concrete, you can have it stained if you
like, it looks great, is easy to clean and is pretty much
indestructible. Second is the epoxy coating already mentioned, a
downside to this stuff is that the fumes during installation are
really bad, unless they have improved it in recent years you need to
evacuate the building until it dries. Third choice is heavy duty
sheet goods type vinyl flooring. Followed closely by heavy vinyl
composition tile, like you find in a hospital or school. The last
choices are hardwood or carpet, they just get trashed! Over the
years I’ve worked on all of them and I like concrete the best, it’s
the most practical in my opinion.
Mark
Tim and I just work on a painted cement floor. It gets a bit chilly
in the winter so for his birthday this year I gave Tim an electric
heated rubber floor pad for under his bench. He loves it.
We just swept and mopped the studio floor yesterday and I was amazed
at how much gold was in the bottom of the mop bucket. We’ll be
sending in our sink metals trap bucket of goo soon to be refined.
Back in the late 20s or early 30s my late father the painter decided
he wanted to try and make some simple pieces of jewelry. It was the
Arts and crafts era. He went directly to Hoover and Strong and was
fascinated that the floors were all wooden slats over a solid floor.
I still have those pieces he made 90 years ago.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com
I havre a tile floor but I also use a very large leather apron that I
have attached to my workbench by magnets from old hard drives from
computers. verystrong and cheap. Hardly ever loose a stone and they
are easy to find andreset. very little wasted time looking. not to
mention the gold and silver I catch. Always vacuumed the apron before
I do any sanding and then have clean sweeps to recycle. Use a
different vacuumed for dirty sweeps. Little shop vacks…$25.00 each…
Also used were frames of wood. Everything goods through the grate
and is collected occasionally. Finding Lost gems would be a pain
though. Smooth concrete would be my thing.
I gave Tim an electric heated rubber floor pad for under his bench. He loves it.
Oooo, I didn’t know that was a thing, that sounds great. I’m also
forever in cold studios.
My floor is very thin industrial carpet glued to a concrete floor.
I vacuum up all the larger pieces of gold, and when I retire, I’ll
scrape up the rug, clean the floor and have a nice chunk of change
for spending on doctors.
Paf Dvorak
What is the best material for a floor in a jewelry workshop?
Oh, there was an extensive conversation about this in the last year
or two. I just searched for it, didn’t find it, but there are also
conversations about flooring in 2008 and 2004. I believe you will
find last years conversation by searching for chicken wire – as in
covering a catch metal dust and prevent your shoes from carrying it
away.
Andrea (who up till now has been a lurker but has a brain that
remembers the most inane of things)
chicken wire -- as in covering a catch metal dust and prevent your shoes from carrying it away.
I have “shop shoes” that I only wear in the shop. Clogs that I keep
by the door and kick off before I leave. It keeps me from tracking
anything out.
Hi
my workshop floor is lino. I run it up the wall 4 inches and silicon
the corners.
Nowhere for anything to hide.
Still my new saw blades meant I needed to adjust my saw frame.
Dropped the screw. Where the hell did it go? Checked the floor not
there. I thought you stupid old f*cker. Then looked in my trouser
cuff LOL.
Richard
A lot of beautiful silver was melted.
A lot but perhaps not the best pieces. A similar thing happened in
France when people turned in their silver for the war effort and
were paid the value of the metal. At least one of those whose job it
was to accept the pieces hada good eye, paid the value from his own
pocket and kept the piece, thus acquiring a nice collection.
Had to laugh. I did that same disappearing trick with a 1/4 ct
diamond…2hours later I looked in my pants fluff there it was.
Never wore pants with cuff again in the shop. realized a lot of gold
over the years had hidd there also with me finding it…
The new snap together laminates might be good and somewhat
inexpensive.
I just saw an installation of vinyl “hardwood tiles”, strips or
squares of wood-grained vinyl glued down. I had looked at these for
an application in my studio and in a finished basement room in my
home but dismissed them. I regret that now. They are really nice,
comfortable too.
The installation that I saw was in a home aquarium show room. Salt
water only. So it’s tough.
In my studio, I put down sheets of salvaged maple gymnasium
floor.Complete with lines. It’s pretty cool and durable…
Andy