PS--> The funny part about all this is that it'll probably take
you 10-20 times as long to make the *tool* to fix the dents as it
will to actually fix the dents once you have the tool.
Re your PS,…
Its Easter monday here, Ive done the washing up, brought in the days
wood, Alison has gone out to see to her clients so I thought Id
share a thought with you all over my morning coffee…
altho im not a stone setting jeweller, like most of the members on
this forum, I have the same issues with time to make the tooling in
comparison to making the item.
Apart from all the technical requirements theres still the 1st and
most important of all considerations, thats the design on the
product, in this case a coin.
As some of you might know I do wrought jewellery and minting of
products, 20 times the time to make the tooling in comparison to
doing the work!! I wish I could do it that quickly!! its more like 100
times in my case counting all the time involved as well.
I had an enquiry last week for 100 silver double sided 1/2troy oz
argentium silver coins.
The customer hadnt even thought what his vision was for ths coin, let
alone working out the silver cost per coin, and how he planned to
sell it.
So before the first coin was struck (properly, in a collar) he would
need to find the up front costs plus the silver costs and our UK
sales tax on that all at 20%.
When everything is ready to go, then the minting cost is $1.00 each,
and takes an hour for the 100 to complete.
Thats on the one shot at a time hand fed drop hammer by Hazelwood
and Dent circa 1880, not a high speed auto feed toggle press, where
100 a minite is normal.
Assuming the coin is 1in diameter, by 1/8th in thick then
theoretically you should get 144 blanks out of a sq foot of silver,
however it never works out like that, youd be lucky, even staggering
the rows to get 120 from a sq foot. You still need some space between
each blank/punch stroke to ensure no cut outs!!.
Blanking is done on a 6 ton Power press, hand fed from sheet 6in by
12 in, fed from the back edge of the sheet so you can see where your
previous row was.
To see 10 piles of 10 coins all exactly the same awaiting the
collection by the customer is still a joy!!.
Ted.