In response to a post on Orchid about what torches could be recommended, I once again slammed the Little Torch, calling it a “toy”.<\/p>\n
A professional jeweler in Denver called me to task, telling me that he uses that torch to do much of his work, and that is is a highly important piece of equipment in his shop.\u00a0 I apologised to him in my post, as I needed to do.<\/p>\n
Well duh, of course there are people out there who use the Little Torch, and love it!\u00a0 What was I thinking??!<\/p>\n
Many professional shops don’t work with lowly old silver in their shops, working instead in high karat gold, palladium and platinum.\u00a0 A small torch like thge Little Torch would have a good use there, although getting enough heat to solder a platinum ring would be tricky, I’m thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of my students are working with silver, and many are making some fairly large bracelets, rings, and pendants, which require, when soldering, some pretty serious flame.\u00a0 A big part of my job is showing students how to correctly use torch flames safely to accomplish what they want to in the studio.<\/p>\n
I see an almost universal unwarranted fear of fire in my students.\u00a0 A large part of being a jewelry instructor is just getting students over their unreasonable fear of fire.\u00a0 I try to convey the idea that fire is just another tool we use to get the results we want, and that conquering that fear is vital to metalsmithing effectively.<\/p>\n
So using the torch scares them initially, until they get used to using it, then it becomes routine.\u00a0\u00a0 But too many fearful students, realizing that when they need to buy a torch for their own studio, think that if they buy just a little cute torch, that it won’t be a scary as a bigger (hotter) torch.\u00a0 Then they start using this new little torch in their studio, and just can’t seem to develop the heat they need to do effective soldering, much less melting metal to pour an ingot.\u00a0 So to avoid being scared ( not scarred ) they handicap themseves with a too-small torch.<\/p>\n
A question…<\/p>\n
Growing up male, we took many risks, including playing with firecrackers (the bigger the better), building fires, home-made explosives, mom’s hairspray “flame-throwers”, you name it.\u00a0 Fire in nearly all its forms was a huge attraction.\u00a0 It is lucky we survived all the crazy stuff we did.<\/p>\n
Now women had a different reality,\u00a0 I am certain.\u00a0 I am imagining that it was understood by girls growing up ( who were very likely more mature than guys anyway) that their beauty was an important asset, and blown-off fingers and burn scars were not going to help much in the dating\/mating arena.\u00a0 So this fear of disfigurement, in my opinion, is what has helped cause a life-long fear of fire in many women, and what makes using a torch such a difficult fear to overcome.<\/p>\n
Women, thoughts here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to a post on Orchid about what torches could be recommended, I once again slammed the Little Torch, calling it a “toy”. A professional jeweler in Denver called me to task, telling me that he uses that torch to do much of his work, and that is is a highly important piece of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}