The Shop of Tomorrow: The Tool I Want in the Future

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<h2 id="h-the-shop-of-tomorrow-the-tool-i-want-in-the-future">The Shop of Tomorrow: The Tool I Want in the Future</h2>

Five jewelers describe the tools they'd like to see coming soon to their shop.

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In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.

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Five jewelers describe the tools they'd like to see coming soon to their shop.

Marstal Smithy Jewelry Studio, Salida, Colorado What I’d really like to see is a smallish, multifunction mass finishing machine. Ideally it would be able to de-burr, burnish, and do a final finishing with polishing compound. Financially, it makes sense: Hand buffing, on average, removes about 8 percent of precious metal weight; mass finishing removes somewhere under half of 1 percent. Also, rather than smaller, independent jewelers having to buy separate tumblers and rotary and magnetic pin finishers, there could be one multifunction machine. A footprint of 12 inches by 12 inches would be good, and it needs to be less than $500. It would relieve jewelers of the tedium of hand finishing, solve the dust problem, and be safe with gemstones. Maybe it could even be used to clean customers’ jewelry, too. What a dream!

Marstal Smithy Jewelry Studio, Salida, Colorado What I’d really like to see is a smallish, multifunction mass finishing machine. Ideally it would be able to de-burr, burnish, and do a final finishing with polishing compound. Financially, it makes sense: Hand buffing, on average, removes about 8 percent of precious metal weight; mass finishing removes somewhere under half of 1 percent. Also, rather than smaller, independent jewelers having to buy separate tumblers and rotary and magnetic pin finishers, there could be one multifunction machine. A footprint of 12 inches by 12 inches would be good, and it needs to be less than $500. It would relieve jewelers of the tedium of hand finishing, solve the dust problem, and be safe with gemstones. Maybe it could even be used to clean customers’ jewelry, too. What a dream!

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Stephen Kris Stephen Kris Designs, New York City I’d love to have a desktop high-pressure waterjet cutter. These cutting machines are used now on the industrial level, but they’re huge and only used for the massive production of parts. I’d like to see units the size of [desktop] 3-D printers. The machine would have all the same capabilities as the industrial units, just on a smaller scale. You could input your coordinates into a computer, which would then feed them to the jet machine just like you do with 3-D printers. You’d then drop in a block of silver or maybe even gold (although that might be expensive considering the waste) and cut and shape the metal using plain old water. You would wind up with a high quality product because you use metal that’s already been compressed and hardened and not cast.
Michelle Pajak-Reynolds Michelle Pajak-Reynolds, Stow, Ohio I’m embracing my inner nerd here, but I would love to have a Star Trek-like replicator for making jewelry. You could use virtual reality to mold the materials with your hands, getting the design just right. It would still be a tactile experience. Then you send the design to the replicator and poof, there it is: All the stones are set and the piece is perfectly polished. It would allow you to do complicated forms that aren’t possible with casting, fabricating, 3-D printing, or sintering. And it would be sustainable too, since the replicator would know the chemical composition of the materials and just create them, without anything having to be dug up out of the ground.
Michael David Sturlin Michael Sturlin Studio, Scottsdale, Arizona I’ve had this thought for years, and it usually comes up when I’m looking for one of my several pairs of magnification glasses. (I use reading glasses in three or four different strengths and focal distances for the majority of my bench work.) I envision a 360-degree progressive magnifier lens encircling the head. The lens would be one solid band about the width of a pair of reading glasses, but with a gradient. The user could then spin the glass until it got to the right magnification or focal distance. Some portion could be clear so it could be used as safety glass. I don’t know how it would affix to the head—maybe with a scull cap that has some sort of suspension rail holding the lens in front of the eyes? It would be great if it had a levitating feature, like Steven Kretchmer’s Polarium earrings [made of a magnetized platinum alloy that allows components to levitate]. I’ve described this apparatus to many students and colleagues and even an inventor friend, but I still haven’t seen a prototype.
Jenny Reeves Jenny Reeves, San Francisco As I was going back and forth between different glasses, an Optivisor, and a loupe while working at the bench, I thought about how great it would be if everything could be happening inside the eye instead of having to always change devices. That’s when I started dreaming of Smart Eyes—microscopic eye implants with auto-focus and magnification that could be adjusted by voice command or even just by thought. I’m imagining that you could either zoom in on something just as you would on a computer screen, or just specify a specific magnification level. There’s no apparatus blocking your sight line, and no need to change eyepieces or manually adjust magnification while you’re working. Maybe Smart Eyes could also take photos and interface directly with a 3-D printer system so you can go directly from inspiration to product in a few easy steps. Though this would certainly atrophy the parts of the brain that develop through use of fine motor skills, don’t worry—we’re only dreaming!
 <a href="https://mjsa.org/publications/online-library/the-shop-of-tomorrow">&lt; Return to The Shop of Tomorrow</a>

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Stephen Kris Stephen Kris Designs, New York City I’d love to have a desktop high-pressure waterjet cutter. These cutting machines are used now on the industrial level, but they’re huge and only used for the massive production of parts. I’d like to see units the size of [desktop] 3-D printers. The machine would have all the same capabilities as the industrial units, just on a smaller scale. You could input your coordinates into a computer, which would then feed them to the jet machine just like you do with 3-D printers. You’d then drop in a block of silver or maybe even gold (although that might be expensive considering the waste) and cut and shape the metal using plain old water. You would wind up with a high quality product because you use metal that’s already been compressed and hardened and not cast.
Michelle Pajak-Reynolds Michelle Pajak-Reynolds, Stow, Ohio I’m embracing my inner nerd here, but I would love to have a Star Trek-like replicator for making jewelry. You could use virtual reality to mold the materials with your hands, getting the design just right. It would still be a tactile experience. Then you send the design to the replicator and poof, there it is: All the stones are set and the piece is perfectly polished. It would allow you to do complicated forms that aren’t possible with casting, fabricating, 3-D printing, or sintering. And it would be sustainable too, since the replicator would know the chemical composition of the materials and just create them, without anything having to be dug up out of the ground.
Michael David Sturlin Michael Sturlin Studio, Scottsdale, Arizona I’ve had this thought for years, and it usually comes up when I’m looking for one of my several pairs of magnification glasses. (I use reading glasses in three or four different strengths and focal distances for the majority of my bench work.) I envision a 360-degree progressive magnifier lens encircling the head. The lens would be one solid band about the width of a pair of reading glasses, but with a gradient. The user could then spin the glass until it got to the right magnification or focal distance. Some portion could be clear so it could be used as safety glass. I don’t know how it would affix to the head—maybe with a scull cap that has some sort of suspension rail holding the lens in front of the eyes? It would be great if it had a levitating feature, like Steven Kretchmer’s Polarium earrings [made of a magnetized platinum alloy that allows components to levitate]. I’ve described this apparatus to many students and colleagues and even an inventor friend, but I still haven’t seen a prototype.
Jenny Reeves Jenny Reeves, San Francisco As I was going back and forth between different glasses, an Optivisor, and a loupe while working at the bench, I thought about how great it would be if everything could be happening inside the eye instead of having to always change devices. That’s when I started dreaming of Smart Eyes—microscopic eye implants with auto-focus and magnification that could be adjusted by voice command or even just by thought. I’m imagining that you could either zoom in on something just as you would on a computer screen, or just specify a specific magnification level. There’s no apparatus blocking your sight line, and no need to change eyepieces or manually adjust magnification while you’re working. Maybe Smart Eyes could also take photos and interface directly with a 3-D printer system so you can go directly from inspiration to product in a few easy steps. Though this would certainly atrophy the parts of the brain that develop through use of fine motor skills, don’t worry—we’re only dreaming!
 <a href="https://mjsa.org/publications/online-library/the-shop-of-tomorrow">&lt; Return to The Shop of Tomorrow</a>

The Shop of Tomorrow: The Tool I Want in the Future

The Shop of Tomorrow: The Tool I Want in the Future

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