We learn the techniques more from the customers than from the master. So to improve the technique, we've got to talk to the customers, make the craft one by one, and listen to their complaints. This is the fastest way to learn as a craftsman. We teach that way once you become a craftsman. My hope is for my students to become craftsmen as fast as possible to learn by talking to the customers. Then our technique can go out to the world, and we all can teach many people all over the world. We used to learn all the crafts and techniques from other culture in the past, so we can spread back what we have acquired to the world.

It's a long process to make our craft, so the jewelry industry tend to divide the process among craftsmen. If one can polish, he/she can live with only polishing, and if one buys some material metal, and sell them to me, he/she can live with that, too. But you need to knowa lot to do your business in such a way. You can't just know about your job, the part you're making, without understanding the other parts of the process. If there's ten processes to the craft, there could be ten craftsmen. I don't think there are many craftsmen who can do all the process in Taito-ku like I can. (do you have colleagues in Tokyo?) There are a lot of colleagues.

It's hard for a foreign-born craftsman to success regardless of his skills:

More than 40% of the craftsmen in Japan are foreign-born today. The people coming to Japan are really good at making the craft. They sell theirs quite cheap, so the foreign-born craftsmen win over the Japanese craftsmen today. But trust is very important in the jewelry industry. You can't leave every process to a foreign-people? There are many customers who want their jewelry to be made by Japanese craftsmen who has succeeded the techniques from generations and generations before him/her. And the old stores like the ones in Ginza, Tokyo, don't favor having foreign-born craftsmen to work for them. I've been asked very often if "I use foreigners" to work in my studio, but I'd say "not really," and we don't have any foreign-born craftsmen working in this studio right now.

We get lots of repairing orders from Italy, France, and Hon Kong the most. (There's no craftsmen in other countries?) Well, there are. There are craftsmen in other countries, and to tell you the truth, 40% of Japanese crafts sold in Japan are made in other countries. There aren't many people overseas who can repair them. You need to know the basics to repair. So many repairs come over here. The jewel can be made perfectly, but if the customers don't like the design, couple thousand dollars would be worth nothing to them.

This is the basic part of making a ring. Any craftsmen, regardless of his/her skills, have to learn and use this technique to make any ring. Silver ring is popular today, so I'll show you how to make these now.

melting the material metal:

I melt the material metal right here. This is the gas range. (what temperature will silver melt?) Silver melts around 1000℃ to 1200℃.Then I put in the melted silver into the mold.

I would mold the melted silver here. This mold is the tool to shape the silver. There will be a silver stick after molding like this. Once the silver is molded, it's not hot anymore. This is the interesting part. Then I strike this stick, shape it, round it, and polish it.




filing the silver:

I would file the silver stick into this square stick. And then I smoothen the extra bumps.

I strike the silver into square. The more I strike, the more the particles of the silver become smaller and the shinier the silver gets after polishing. This is the good part about the hand-made rings. It's just like swords. I strike them a lot.

I namasu again like I did before. I put the silver into the water right after burning it.The silver is still soft after putting into the water.

round the silver with the "size stick":

This stick is called the "size stick." This is an iron size stick. I round the ring with this stick.

rounded silver:

This is the rounded silver. cutting the silver with fret saw:

Then I stick the contacting point with wax perfectly. I cut right over here with a fret saw, and stick them.

I put this adhesive called "gin-ro"(silver wax) on here, and melt it. We use "kin-ro"(gold wax) for gold, and "platinum-ro"(platinum wax) for platinum. How to make these are secret, and the master would say "you make the platinum wax like this…" and teach the student when the student become independent to have his own store. This is called "flax," and you know the silver turns black very easily. This flax is to avoid oxidizing the silver, and to put the wax on faster. This is just like a soldered paste. We normally would have to do this process by hand. I don't do this a lot now, so I'd just do this by another easier way. This easy way is around for a long time. The craftsmen's world is interesting in another way that the easy way to do some process is passed along for a long time. And the great techniques won't be passed along. The great techniques usually stops at the master who has that technique. He wouldn't teach it to anyone. The technique to do something faster and easier spread throughout the country very quickly. This is one of the mysterious things about craftsmen's world.

I would smoothen this here. I use a file, and smoothen the inside. This is difficult, too. To move my hand to the opposite direction as the file is the difficult part. fitting into the size of the ring: I put the size stick into the ring again. If the ring is size 15, we use the size 15 size stick. There's a perfect circle over here. Then I file the ring again. This filing technique is very difficult that it takes about a month to acquire. Actually, if it is a long process to make a craft, you can make a craft in higher quality. The process used today is not long, so the craft's quality is not so great.???

Then I polish the ring with the machine. This is the buffmotor. This polishes the whole ring. I polish the inside with this machine, then I polish the side. Then I use the other machine to polish again. This is the end. I would wash the ring with water to finish.