Man, you really ticked off David Geller Now!

Wow Leonid love to see you size a titanium band with a torch or
even a stainless one. 

Funny, that you mentioned that. Many years ago, I did an engagement
ring in stainless steel. One guy made a killing on steel options, so
he was celebrating. I am belonging to the school of thought that
jewellery can be done of any material, but nothing should touch the
skin except gold. I have always used gold inserts to insure the
proper sizing and it looks better too. I am sure it will work for
titanium as well.

Leonid Surpin

Goo…I have bought David’s pricing system and if you do nothing
else but raise your prices, without the contained on the
5 cd’s that come with it, you may have a problem. However, if you
take all the that you receive with the book, and
implement it, your profits on repairs will go up. Like any other kind
of sale, a repair sale takes educating the customer on all the work
that goes into a quality repair on a piece of jewelry. How to do that
effectively is the basis for David’s system. It’s not just raising
your prices.

I have found that when I take the time to explain to the customer
that goes into a quality repair, there is very little "price"
objection. And, my repair profits have gone way up. If I can get paid
more for doing the same amount of work, that is OK by me…Teddy
(with no affiliation with David Geller, only a satisfied customer)

I have always used gold inserts to insure the proper sizing and it
looks better too. I am sure it will work for titanium as well. 

Is it possible to show on your blog how to size a titanium ring
using inserts. Especially sizing it smaller. It would make my life a
lot easier.

http://www.meevis.com
http://hansmeevis.blogspot.com

there is alot more to this plan than just raising your prices &
"loads of money coming in" is the sales hook concept 

I agree, there is much more to this than just raising prices, you
have to BE THE BEST, not just in ability but in the way you interact
with the customer. If it does not work don’t blame geller. I just
had a plumber come to my house and gived me an estimate $150.00, and
you don’t think someone will pay 40 bucks to size a ring. I do not
use gellers book because I made my own price list years ago about the
time geller did. I wish I had promoted mine, I could be selling
them. Gellers book is a well put together laid out repair plan, it
would take you many many hours to do it yourself. If you don’t have
the guts to follow the prices you can use it as a guide, show the
customer and say, this is the going rate but I do the repair for 20%
less. Not only will you still make more money on the repair you will
make the customer think you are giving them a deal. I have found
that the only people that complain about my prices are the customers
that buy online or from home shopping and they want me to size the
crap they bought cheap. If they don’t ever come back I don’t care
because they would not buy from me anyway. By the way I am starting
to turn down working on this cheap hollow crap jewelry being sold. It
is not worth the headache at any price.

Bill Wismar

i personally think the person making the most money is him. 

Stuller gets @$400 for his Geller Blue Book “system”. While I could
not get my employer to really stick to his suggested prices, I have
been able to get him to adjust pricing upward from where it was
before, pretty significantly. Didn’t take even a month to recoup more
than that $400 investment.

While I am sure we can assume that Mr Geller has profited well from
his system and from his speaking, any one of us can easily earn far
more profit in a month or two, than he will earn from our individual
purchase from him. Even the few stores that I do trade work for have
profited, because I pass along the suggested retail prices on every
job that I do, so they can see what others around the country are
getting for this same work. They have all made upward adjustments
since I started doing this. They had to, as my price to them is based
upon the “blue book” price.

there is alot more to this plan than just raising your prices &
"loads of money coming in" is the sales hook concept, if you buy
it & doesnt work there is no money back and there will be no
apologies from the seller (i know), i personally think the person
making the most money is him. - warm regards goo 

There are seminars and workshops that cost as much or more than
Geller’s Blue book costs. They have no money back guarantee. I have
used Geller’s blue book, and although I have not updated, his
premise that repair is trust based was not lost on me. While I could
not charge some of the prices he suggests, I was able to raise most
all the prices higher for repair than I had been charging. When the
economy started getting bad last year, I did raise all my prices for
repair and custom to compensate for the loss of retail sales. I was
up $4,000 this Feb. over last year. It was not from Valentine sales.

I have a hard time understanding how someone cannot make back many
more times in a year than what Geller’s book costs, just by raising
prices between what you now charge and what he suggests, even if you
do not charge as much as he suggests, unless you are already
charging as much as he suggests.

If you do not implement it, it won’t work. I did, it does. I still
have fear when I quote some prices, but I usually lose the work that
I would have lost quoting a lower price, and I am quite glad when I
quote the proper price and run into an issue that involves more time
or materials and I am not eating the loss.

Richard Hart G.G.
Denver, Co.

Well, Goo, you are entitled to believe and to express whatever you
like, but… as a person with no axe to grind (I don’t do repairs,
don’t own or work in a store), I can’t help but notice the many
testimonials from people praising the book and the results when they
have used it. There has been the occasional letter saying “That’s all
very well for you, but it would never work for me”, but unless I’m
having a serious memory lapse, there has not been a single posting
saying “I tried this, and it was a total flop, my customers walked, I
really shot myself in the foot on this one!”

If David Geller is earning a living (as we all must), I think it is
pretty unreasonable and uncalled for to suggest that this makes him a
scam artist, making money from the gullibility of his customers.

Let me repeat-- I have no dog in this fight (how about all these
metaphors, huh?). Never met David, nor seen his book, nor nuthin’.

Noel

Is it possible to show on your blog how to size a titanium ring
using inserts. Especially sizing it smaller. It would make my life
a lot easier. 

It is really simple. Let’s say you have a ring of size 9 and you want
to reduce it to size 8. Size 9 is equivalent to 19 mm inside
diameter, and size 8 is 18 mm inside diameter.

All we need to do is to make a gold ring with outside diameter of
19mm and inside diameter of 18 mm.

file a small facet on the inside of titanium or steel ring on both
sides. insert gold ring and using burnisher, stretch the gold to fill
the facet. If insert is thick, you can use doming punch of the right
diameter.

Done accurately, no soldering necessary and insert can be replaced
later, or removed completely if required.

Leonid Surpin

Laser welds are far inferior to solder joints. Jewelers love them
because repairs can be done without removing stone, but as far as
comparative quality, they are junk. 

It’s clear to me, Leonid, that you are not sufficiently experienced
with laser welders or what they can do. You are correct that in SOME
cases, the laser welds are not as good as a solder joint, since some
metals simply don’t weld very well with a laser. And if one needs a
clean “capillary” joint, then again, solders flow into a seam, while
lasers need to penetrate from the surface in. So yes, in some cases,
laser welds are not the way to go. But there are also many situations
where laser welds are demonstrably better BY FAR, than solder. The
simplest example is laser welds with platinum. Just as fused welds
(torch welds) on platinum can produce a joint with essentially no
seam, so can the laser. And the laser can do it without annealing the
surrounding metal, or even the weld area. Getting a good weld with a
laser is not automatic, just as getting a good solder seam is more
than just knowing how to light a torch.

The simple fact is that a solder seam will generally be annealed, so
resulting metal can be more easily bent or dented. This sometimes
matters to the durability of a piece. And a solder seam is a metal
that is not exactly the same as the joined metal. The seam can be
strong, yes, but it’s still a seam, and in some metals, will be at
least slightly visible, or may be liable to melting again, if a
subsequent repair or assembly operation needs to be done. That might
then require a lower melting solder, where the problems are then
worse.

Of course, this does not apply to all situations. Sometimes solder
seams are better, and are often even faster to do than a laser weld
(It’s a misconception that laser welding is always faster than
soldering. It’s not. Sometimes, yes, but not always.) But I promise
you that my use of a laser, either the one in my home shop, or the
one where I work during the day, is not a matter of being lazy, or
unskilled. I use it when it gives the best result. Always. And for
you to claim that laser welds are always inferior junk simply
displays your obvious ignorance of the capabilities of a properly
used laser welder.

Oh, and as to your reply about sizing titanium or stainless rings by
use of a gold liner.

Ok, that’s a good solution if it’s your only possibility. But you’re
sidestepping the question sir. You’re sizing that titanium ring
down, without cutting it. What about if you actually have a situation
where you need to cut it? Or what about if the customer doesn’t want
or cannot afford a gold liner (which could easily cost more than a
titanium ring)? Some people actually like the titanium, and believe
it or not, some people find they can wear titanium but not gold.
Titanium is as hypoallergenic, or more so for some people, than even
high karat gold. The point was not whether you can find a way around
not being able to cut and solder titanium, it was that, if you NEED
to do so, with a laser you now can do it. No matter that you’ve got
alternative options in some cases. that wasn’t the question.

Oh, and gold liners are useful only to a degree. How about a lady
coming in with a size 10 gents ring who’d like it sized down to a
five so she can wear it. Just put a liner in that puppy, and you’ll
have a fine paper weight, not a wearable ring. Or how about if the
ring she has is just a little tight. “Take it down an 1/8th of a
size, please”. The liner you’d have to use for such a slight
reduction in size would be so thin as to be problematically fragile.
With a laser, both problems are simply and easily solved.

But I probably shouldn’t bother to argue with you. Kind of like
pissing into the wind with you. I don’t think I’ve yet to see you
change your mind or admit to being misinformed or even just thank
someone for giving you a bit of info you didn’t have on anything yet
on this forum, despite sometimes throngs of people, some of them
recognized experts, trying to add to your already formidable
knowledge. But you seem to already know so much, that apparently
there’s not much room for more. Be careful about that. When you
loose the ability or willingness to continue to learn, you start to
grow old very fast.

Peter Rowe

If I use a torch or any one of many powered tools at my disposal
that does not make me any less of a jeweler, goldsmith, or diamond
setter.

It does if you do not understand the limitations of these gadgets.
Laser welds are far inferior to solder joints. Jewelers love them
because repairs can be done without removing stone, but as far as
comparative quality, they are junk. 

The difference between “gadgets” and tools, is skill. It seems that
you are not aware of the significant differences between soldering
and welding.

A true weld is the result of complete fusion of the metal at the
“joint”, by melting of these metals, and the addition of more of the
same metal, not a filler material with dissimilar qualities, like
solder or brazefilling.

When done correctly, the result of welding is the elimination
completely of any seem. Welding requires a different skill set than
soldering, and very different techniques. Instead of the tight seam
required for the successful flow of solder, to create a “bond” in
welding, the preparation of same must create more of a “V”. The metal
at the point of the V is melted first, by the beam of light, arc, or
a torch, allowing the two metal pieces to flow together. Then
gradually the wider portion of the joint is melted, and filled with
the same molten material as the body of metal being welded. An
extremely strong fusion is achieved which is why welding is used in
major construction, rather than the much older technique of
soldering, ie: autos, buildings etc.

Done correctly welding is far stronger than soldering, but not all
people take the time, or have the skill and experience to do such
welding, and their seams are often weak, and barely penetrate the
surface, leaving a very incomplete bond, with major areas beneath
completely un bonded.

I always pay close attention to any failure of a joint, to learn
from any mistakes, and avoid them in any future work in similar
materials.

Both soldering and welding have applications in the jewelry industry.
There will always be places that soldering is the better choice, for
various reasons, but not for the reason that the solder bond is
stronger than a true weld.

Respectfully disagreeing,
Jim Newton

Leonid I find your attitudes fascinating. I have been a jeweler for
35 years and am always open to new techniques and ideas. The idea
that nothing but gold should touch ones skin is truly unique. I
assume you only us24k then as those alloys would compromise that
idea. Until I got a laser I never used solder to size a new ring as I
was taught torch welding was stronger joint. I still usually torch
weld white gold rings. I laser weld many pieces and when I laser weld
I would put the integrity of the joint up against any soldered joint.
Indeed one of the first experiments I conducted with the laser was to
solder a joint with 14k hard solder on one side of a band and then
lasered the opposite side. I then placed the ring on a ring stretcher
and the solder pulled apart well before anything else. Done
correctly, a laser joint is far superior to a solder joint. Indeed if
I size a ring with the laser it takes longer than using a torch. It
is a tool not a crutch. Well maybe it is a crutch, I can get rid of
that flex shaft and use only hand tools, forget the polishing lathe
I’ll polish by hand and that ultrasonic and steamer, all crutches of
the lazy goldsmith.

Hello Leonid,

I must commend you for your skills.

Being able to solder is a skill that very few people can accomplish,
to perfection. True, that laser welding is a new skill, but being
able to solder with a torch will fall by the wayside in a few years
and technology keeps advancing and having the skill to hand torch
solder will be obsolete even though it has been done for years. Take
for instance, soldering with a blow torch. How many artists can do
this? Not many and certainly not me.

Also having the money to purchase this new fangled equipment is
necessary. And if an artisan isn’t into production on a mass scale
then some of the new equipment in just a luxury.

I myself, have a problem using a hand torch, because I used to teach
basic electronic soldering with an iron and I can do it with my eyes
closed, but torch soldering is hard for me.

And it doesn’t help, that I used to do this soldering without the
proper ventilation and therefore now I have trouble breathing when I
hand solder with an iron or torch. I just started using a mask, but
since it rides up and over my eyes, creating another problem that I
haven’t solved yet. GRRR.

My Mentor when he was alive, said that the old way of creating
jewelry will be a lost art and that really would be a shame. Being
able to pass on and share those skills with new students and
apprentices is valuable. Not everyone has the ability to teach this
skill and not everyone is able to learn this skill. The proof of this
is me. I am still learning and will, if it takes me another 20 years.
LOL.

So, Please keep posting hints, clues and anything else that you
think a “newbie” needs to learn. I read all of the posts and save and
print out everything new. How else will l learn when I just now have
someone who is on the forum who lives close to me, allowing me to
watch and take notes?

Denise Jenkins, lives just a few miles from me and she and I have
met and she is a very skilled and a true artisan. She helps me just
by being near by and volunteering to tutor me. I have hope now.

As for Mr. Geller, he has a point about his pricing I
know that I don’t charge enough for repairs and was feeling guilty
about charging more even though I don’t do a lot on gold or silver,
but costume jewelry that most jewelers won’t touch. I wasn’t charging
enough for my skills on it either. I didn’t realize, that being able
to repair/refurbish costume jewelry was a skill until I was told that
none of the jewelers in my area would do it because it didn’t pay
enough. They knew if they used a torch to solder the jewelry would
melt, whereas I use an iron at a lower temperature using Stay-Brite
or Pewter solder and can replace jump rings, build and solder missing
pieces and replace clasps, etc.

But, I still will learn to torch solder!!

Sincerely,
Veva

Let me repeat-- I have no dog in this fight (how about all these
metaphors, huh?). Never met David, nor seen his book, nor nuthin’

well noel - after a closing statement like that why are you
commenting? just an honest question

best regards goo

Leonid I find your attitudes fascinating. I have been a jeweler
for 35 years and am always open to new techniques and ideas. 

I think I addressed these arguments in my response to Peter. The
issue is not your skill, the issue is inherent properties of weld
joints versus soldered ones.

Torch welding is not the same as laser welding because you heat
surrounding areas and the more you heat it, the better the weld. I
would argue that torch welding is simply a soldering with very high
temperature solder. Lazer is very different in this respect

Leonid Surpin

And the laser can do it without annealing the surrounding metal, or
even the weld area. Getting a good weld with a laser is not
automatic, just as getting a good solder seam is more than just
knowing how to light a torch. 

What you consider a advantage, I consider a detriment. As you
correctly pointing out, welding changes metal structure in proximity
of a joint. So what happens is that metal with one type of structure
adjoining metal with quite different type of structure. The hotter
and the more pointed application of heat, the more distinct the
separation and that is never a good thing. If stresses are applied
to such an area, the load cannot be evenly distributed, and welded
areas become subjects of very high forces.

If we take a prong and solder it in the middle. When load is
applied, it is resisted by the whole length of the prong. Soldered
joint conduct loads without any problems. I should add “correctly
soldered joint”. If we replace soldered joint with welded one, most
of the load will be concentrated on the joint. Due to the difference
in structure modulus of elasticity is very much different.

In industrial applications, engineers aware of that fact and make
sure not to exceed structural loads in these areas. In goldsmithing
it is quite another matter. Welding simply replaced soldered joint
without any compensation for deficiency in conduction of the loads.
What used to be soldered, now it is welded and that results in
jewellery of inferior quality. And that is my point.

Leonid Surpin

well noel - after a closing statement like that why are you
commenting? just an honest question.

I commented, as I had hoped I made clear, because I felt your
comments were unjustified, since no one who has actually used
Geller’s book seems to have complained. I’m sure he doesn’t need me
to defend him, I just felt it needed to be said by someone with no
reason for bias.

Noel

Being able to solder is a skill that very few people can
accomplish, to perfection. True, that laser welding is a new skill,
but being able to solder with a torch will fall by the wayside in a
few years and technology keeps advancing and having the skill to
hand torch solder will be obsolete even though it has been done for
years. Take for instance, soldering with a blow torch. How many
artists can do this? Not many and certainly not me. 

I wonder if you would believe me that soldering problems are mostly
mental. It is not to say that there are no difficult areas, because
there is. But you talking about basic soldering. I suspect that you
using torch which way too hot for your skill. I bet if you would
start soldering with minimal flame, you would be ok.

Set you torch on minimum. It is ok if it would be so low that you
cannot even melt the solder. It is perfectly fine. Once you found
that point, make flame a little hotter and try again. In very short
order, you will find a setting which melts the solder, but not the
gold or silver. Whatever metal you are working with. After that you
are home. Just keep moving the torch all the time, so the heat is
even and watch the solder to flow, That is all there is to it. And
of course do not forget to apply flux.

Leonid Surpin

In industrial applications, engineers aware of that fact and make
sure not to exceed structural loads in these areas. In
goldsmithing it is quite another matter. Welding simply replaced
soldered joint without any compensation for deficiency in
conduction of the loads. What used to be soldered, now it is welded
and that results in jewellery of inferior quality. And that is my
point. 

Leonid, you do of course make a valid observation that the
structureal differences over short distances are higher with a laser
weld than with a soldered joint. But your observations ignores the
fact that with a solder joint, the presence of solder itself, a
different metal compostion, not just stress level or crystal size,
also introduces differences in strength. And the solder joint on most
metals, is almost always annealed, which means more flexible and more
easily deformed and bent.

The use of a laser, like any tools, depends on more than the ability
to push the foot pedal. As with anything in metal, you must also
understand your material. And understanding the metal is included.
Within a short period of time after starting to use a laser, one
discovers things. You size a ring, for example, and hammer/planish
the joint to fully round out the ring. And discover that you’ve just
cracked the weld. Ok, so now you understand something more about the
nature of laser welds. You learn in some cases, to use settings on
the laser (pulse shapes, if your machine supports them) that allow
the cooling weld some time to at least partially stress relieve
itself. Those welds then don’t crack so easily. Or you learn to
design the shape of the weld to use the increased hardness, which
supplying strength where needed so the weld performs properly. Or you
can learn to use your torch after welding, to gently anneal or at
least stress relieve the metal, if your weld is in an area where the
heat can be tolerated. That operation is much lower heat than
soldering itself, and done correctly, results in a still not fully
annealed piece of metal that has uniform strength across the weld.
Again, this is part of the skill one gains with use of the tool, just
as proper use of a torch to solder requires one to learn things such
as how to properly fit a joint tightly, how to not use too much
solder, and which types of solder to use for a given situation.

Back to your illustration, though. The prong soldered on. Lets take
two prongs. Both platinum wire, in a basket style head. Put this head
together with solder, and the wire is dead soft annealed. Even with a
bit of working, after setting your stone, if you catch that prong on
something (and yes, with a well done setting that might not be all
that likely), and it will take less force to bend that wire back,
bending at the solder joint to the undergallery, and off the stone.
Now if instead, that head is made with laser welds, and you start
with wire that’s drawn down to be reasonably work hardened, then
after assembly, the wire, and the weld, remain thus work hardened.
Even if you gently stress relieve the metal (heat to just barely
glowing for a moment and quench, is enough), the wire will remain
substantially springier and stronger than the fully annealed version.
And the stone, after setting, will be just that little bit more
secure.

The assumption you’re making all through this argument is that the
laser is a “cheat” tool, used for it’s speed, allowing unskilled
workers to assemble some semblance of items that previously required
more skill. And there’s no doubt that some people are indeed using
lasers like that. But I’ll suggest that those same people, when they
previously were using a torch, were not exactly using it with full
mastery either. The tool, laser or torch, doesn’t dictate the
quality of the work. The user of the tool does.

And simply on the actual experimental observation level, I’ve been
using laser welders for close to ten years now. I’ve seen any number
of pieces that I’ve made over the years, and have been able to
observe how well they do, or don’t, hold up. While it’s not
universal, and some welds are problematic, on average, I can report
that the laser welds have generally been more durable and less
likely to fail or need repair over time. If this were not true, we’d
probably not use the laser so much. We don’t see sizing seams. Ever.
Even with platinum items sized right next to stones. No gold solder
to show up or be softer than the platinum so it polishes out or wears
differently. Repairs, like retipped prongs, last longer, and look
better. The harder welds simply don’t wear down as fast. I’ve seen
rings where someone has retipped a few prongs, and now I’m asked to
retip only the rest. When it goes out, they all now look like new,
but some are my laser welded tips, and others are the soldered on
tips. I’ll see the thing periodically when the customer brings it in
to clean and check, and invariably, the ones that were retipped with
solder, are more likely to show wear, or be bent or otherwise need
more work. I’m not guessing here, Leonid. This isn’t theory or
metalurgy being quoted. This is actual observation over a decade, of
actual jewelry as it’s performed in the hands of customers. I’ll
grant that well done soldering work is high quality. But on average,
there is a difference between the durability of the work we repair or
build with the laser (when appropriate), as opposed to work we or
others have done with a torch. Sometimes the difference isn’t great
or dramatic (though other times, especially if the solder work in
question is “average commercial quality” rather than expert
workmanship, the difference can be between wonderful and terrible
work)… But in general, the laser wins.

This isn’t guessing or theoretical, Leonid. It’s actual experience
and observation of the work we and others have done with the laser
and with traditional soldering methods. As I said before, the laser
isn’t universally better for everything. There are a substantial
number of jobs where the torch is better. But sometimes, when the
laser is the better choice, it’s dramatically better. And as with the
torch, if you use the laser carelessly or without skill and
understanding of what it’s doing, the results will often not be
acceptable. But when that’s the case, blame the user, not the tool.

Peter Rowe

People, people, people! There is no right or wrong way to make or
repair jewelry. Just easier and harder ways to do it.

I’m old school and just love to solder and weld with a flame.
However, I do use a water torch or occasion. It does some stuff like
chains and tips really well. And yes there are times when nothing
will work except a laser welder. If I had a busy trade shop I would
invest in one in a NY minute. I’d also have a TIG welder. But then
I’m a stone cold tool junkie.

That said, I tell folks, laser welders are like a pickup truck, you
don’t really need a laser welder. You just need a friend who has one.

Have fun and make lots of jewelry.

Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com

David Geller makes a valuable contribution and his thread gets
hijacked and his message drowned out. A bit unfair I’d think. But…

Welding simply replaced soldered joint without any compensation for
deficiency in conduction of the loads. 

That might be the case if someone, who apparently has no real world
experience with the laser and perhaps makes gross assumptions about
it in the midst of that inexperience, mistakenly treats the join in
the same way as a torched solder. He takes pains to point out he
means a ‘correct solder joint’, but totally disregards that a lasered
joint, for meaningful comparison purposes, should also be ‘correct’.

You get a superior weld if you bevel and fill. Just tacking the
outer surface is not cool. The essence of welding is penetration. Its
like thinking that because both sides of a chisel come to the same
point that it doesn’t matter which side is down. Makes a big diff.
Use the tool correctly. (how’s that? I made something other than a
car geek reference for a change!)