May I polish before soldering?

Leonid is right on this one though I'll have to have a word with
him about haberdashery. Now Leonid- Having learned old school
european style fur felt hat blocking form the amazing Dayna Pinkham
I can testify that it takes great skill, time and patience 

Surely that’s millinery Jo? The art of hat making, which is as you
say, is avery skilled job. Haberdashery is a shop which sells items
for sewing, suchas thread, zips, buttons, elastic, fabric, etc, and
a person working in such a shop is a haberdasher.

Helen
UK

I do that all the time, I then coat my components by dipping the
polished items in Boracic (Boric acid powder) mixed with Methylated
Spirits before soldering. This is an old trick, helps keep the metal
bright, works really well on gold. Comes off in the acid pickle

Cheers Hamish

This idea must be expressed much stronger! What separates real
jewellery from haberdashery is that every component is
individually finished Leonid is right on this one though I'll have
to have a word with him about haberdashery. 

I don’t even know what haberdashery is. I think I’ll have to find a
dictionary.

I suppose, thought, that the amount of attention which meets his
standards creates jewelry meant to be sold to the top 1% of income or
wealth in the country.

I guess the other 99% has to settle for haberdashery (grimace).

I had created a pin for my wife’s Mother’s Day present. I learned a
lot about silver soldering to silver (fine, not yet sterling), both
the hard medium and easy types. It took about 20 hours over 2 weeks
to get just right.

My wife was astonished. I told her it was laughable by the standards
of a master (like Leonid). She said it didn’t matter, I had made it,
and she thought it was beautiful in spite of its imperfections.

I told her that was the prototype, and I could try to make a better
one to replace it.

She said no, she was keeping it.

At least I know now that it’s not unprofessional to polish before
soldering. I had originally thought that you could only begin to
polish after the final article was completely assembled. Now I know
better, and that may save me a lot of grief as I go forward.

Happy Mother’s Day!
Andrew Jonathan Fine

If you have lots of small holes in a piece of metal, how would you
polish the inside of all the holes? the fastest way? Okay Ted
Frater, I give up. What's the best way to do that? The word
Thrumming has been mentioned over the last couple of days here on
G. 

I’ve done something similar by cutting a “string” of sandpaper out
of a sheet and using that.

I’ve also cut off the head of a baby ear cotton swab and chucked it
in my Dremel for polishing small holes in the 0.5 mm diameter and
larger. It works for a minute or two if not much pressure is applied,
fortunately cotton swabs are cheap.

Andrew Jonathan Fine

Thank for asking this question, now I learned another vulnerable
lesson.

Anna

In the US, for some reason, “haberdashery” has also come to mean a
shop for men’s body linen and accessories.

A milliner makes women’s hats.

A hatter makes men’s hats.

Elliot Nesterman

Helen- In the “Hat World” a person who makes women’s hats is a
Milliner. A person who makes men’s hats is a Haberdasher. The felts
used in haberdashery are heavier and stiffer than in women’s hats.
The blocks for Millinery are often soft woods like balsa wood and
some times paper mache.

I’ve even seen the canned foam insulation stuff used. Haberdashery
blocks are harder wood to stand up to the moisture and pressure of
blocking heavier fur felt.

Yup that’s me. A vast store of trivial and useless knowledge.

I do know how to hand block hats, sew clothes including underwear,
make jewelry, teeth, glasses, and now I’d really love to learn to
make shoes.

Anybody out there know how? I’d love to be able to make an entire
outfit from top to bottom.

Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com

I suppose, thought, that the amount of attention which meets his
standards creates jewelry meant to be sold to the top 1% of income
or wealth in the country. 

I had an apprentice once, who came into goldsmithing from carpentry.

Man never worked with metal before. In 3 month he achieved more than
some in a year. He always put 100% into anything he was working on,
regardless of how unimportant it was.

The worst thing a beginning goldsmith can do is to start
differentiating on the basis of price. The cost to a client is
determined by cost of material and value of time spent. The quality
must alway be 100%, regardless of whether item would be sold for $10
or $10,000,000.

Leonid Surpin

While goldsmith doing substandard work is called "shoemaker", his
work is referred to as "haberdashery". 

Depends where you buy your shoes. The best shoes cost many thousands
of dollars. Even in the shoe industry there are elite products :wink:

Regards Charles A.

If you have lots of small holes in a piece of metal, how would you
polish the inside of all the holes? the fastest way? 

Round wood toothpicks charged with tripoli.

Richard Hart G. G.
Denver, Co.

Coming from yet another corner of “the world”, the world of cooking.
“Shoemaker” was a term I heard used to describe a bad cook,
particularly a broiler cook whose steaks turned out like shoe
leather. In any case, it seems that whether you are a jeweller,
haberdasher, milliner, or cook, your peers don’t think much of
shoemakers. My question of the day: What term do shoemakers use to
describe a bad shoemaker?

Depends where you buy your shoes. The best shoes cost many
thousands of dollars. 

“Shoemaker” comes from times when almost every street corner was
occupied by a shoe repair shop.

As a rule it was a single proprietor business. If you lost sole of
your shoe on your way to work, you can stop at such shop and have it
fixed while you wait. Such repairs did not last long, a day or two
if one lucky.

That is meaning behind the term “shoemaker”.

Leonid Surpin

I thought this was about polishing, but hey… It’s breakfast for
me, too:

hab-er-dash-er(hbr-dshr) n. 1. A dealer in men’s furnishings. 2.
Chiefly British A dealer in sewing notions and small wares.

[Middle English, perhaps from Anglo-Norman hapertas, petty wares.]

Thanks Jo, I didn’t realise that. I don’t know if the definitions of
haberdasher are different across the pond, or whether we’ve just
warped the definition in the UK.

I’d love to make shoes too! I have a passion for shoes.

Helen
UK

"In the context, "haberdashery" is a colloquialism of another term
"shoemaker", which frequently used among goldsmiths to denote low
quality work. While goldsmith doing substandard work is called
"shoemaker", his work is referred to as "haberdashery". " 

Maybe they just haven’t seen work by the right “Shoemaker” :wink:
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)

Erich C. Shoemaker

I'd love to make shoes too! I have a passion for shoes. 

Jo and Helen both, I guess. I was going to be sly and paste some
page. Googling “making shoes” brought up too many hits to paste,
though. How-to’s, classes, books. The link below is on top and goes
step by step, though the sample picture is awfully funky:

preserving your polished finish when soldering

Hi there,

I know I am getting in at the tail end of this thread, my apologies
to all and thanks for your patience.

I read Janet’ s contribution on how to retain the polished finish of
your work while soldering. She suggested soaking each polished piece
in Boric acid and denatured alcohol before soldering.

Is there a product I could buy on the market that would do the same?
I guess I am looking for an easy solution… Janet, what is the
exact recipe for your suggested remedy. it would be a God send
because I have found my patience tried and test when working with
highly detailed work where the nooks and crannies are impossible to
get at when the full assembly of the work is complete.

Thanks so much for any replies.

Best wishes to all
Tina
Dublin, Ireland

didn't realise that. I don't know if the definitions of haberdasher
are different across the pond, or whether we've just warped the
definition in the UK. 

I don’t think they are different, here’s the definition, no mention
of Definition of HABERDASHER

British : a dealer in notions

: a dealer in men’s clothing and accessories
See haberdasher defined for English-language learners
See haberdasher defined for kids
Origin of HABERDASHER

Middle English haberdassher, from modification of Anglo-French
hapertas kind of cloth First Known Use: 14th century

Elaine
CreativeTextureTools.com

Martin said-- “My question of the day: What term do shoemakers use
to describe a bad shoemaker?”

I can’t speak to shoemakers in particular, but back home, I worked
in a leather shop for a few years & my boss always made fun of the
shoe repair guy downtown, mostly by saying that the only thing he was
any good at was fixing shoes. On the other hand, there was a shoe
repair place run by a couple Pakistani guys who were terrible &
that place barely ever rated a mention. (really- I had them repair
some leather boots once, which turned out to be a horrible mistake on
my part. But that was long before I worked for Ed.) On the extremely
rare that their shop was mentioned, about the only word that could be
repeated in polite company was “don’t”.

Hmm, I have some boots I was thinking of taking in for repairs–
I’ll try to remember to ask them. :smiley:

Sharon,
Artist, Metalsmith, Chaos Magnet, Lover of comfortable leather boots.

I read Janet' s contribution on how to retain the polished finish
of your work while soldering. She suggested soaking each polished
piece in Boric acid and denatured alcohol before soldering. Is there
a product I could buy on the market that would do the same? 

Argotect specifically made by Johnson Matthey for this job.

Available in 500 gm pots. Certainly available here in the UK in the
Jewellery quarter in B’ham, and most probably in Ireland as well.

Go digging on google.