Weeeeeel, lets see..... I sell truck parts for a living. I'm 40 next month (Nov 2006). I have a husband & two boys (4 & 5). I'm a member of two reenactment groups (one does Viking Dublin - 1006AD, the other is American Rev. War - 1776AD), I'm associated with another (London Trained Bands - 1642AD) and I'm thinking of branching out into Roman Britain next year. I like to make things. All sorts of things. Being involved in reenactment gives me an unending variety of interesting projects to make & processes to learn and I LOVE it. I'm in Australia. I joined my local gem club (Geelong Gem and Mineral Club) at the end of last year after several years of thinking about it but not having the time to spare due to other commitments. A very good friend was turning 30 this year and I had a piece of jewellery in mind that I knew she'd kill for. It was time to have a go. It was from the Viking period on Gotland and involved un-even, double cabochon rock crystals in filligree and granulated silver mounts. Everybody was very polite about it and told me to put my name down for the cabochon cutting and silverwork courses. I did the cabochon course at the end of February (silverwork a couple of months later) and have been turning up religiously every Monday night to work on my stones ever since. The last of the eleven rock crystals will be finished by the end of November. I'm very, very, proud of them. That is where the actual problems will start though. While Geelong has a really excellent cabochon teacher, nobody there had ever attempted to do filigree or granulation. I had to explain what it was to more than a few of them. They think I'm a particularly mad but very enthusiastic newbie (not arguing). I'm going to have to teach myself what appears to be a particularly tricky process from written directions without anybody to walk with me the first few times to keep me out of the pot holes. Your archive has some very good articles on granulation. I've joined so that I can pick peoples brains, howl about the successes and grump when the silver melts into slag because I've heated it that degree too much. Hi.