Making the Most of Your Flex-shaft

The power rotary tool, a.k.a. flexible shaft or flex-shaft, is a time-saving, versatile piece of jewelry making equipment. It's primarily used for cutting, drilling, grinding, sanding, texturizing, and polishing metal. A flex-shaft's motor is capable of spinning much faster than a household drill, and its hand piece, at the end of a long tube or shaft, allows you to perform very intricate, small-scale work.

Ironically, the flex-shaft's great versatility can also cause confusion when you're first thinking of purchasing one - or even when (like myself) you own one but wonder whether you're using it to its fullest potential. The variety of attachments, drills, burs, polishers, mandrels, cutters, etc, available for use with flex-shafts can be overwhelming.

This is where Making the Most of Your Flex-shaft (Orchid in Print: Maximum Bench Work, Volume I) by Karen Christians comes to the rescue. It contains all the important information about choosing, using, and accessorizing a flex-shaft that you won't find in your supplier's catalog or flex-shaft manual.

Overview

Chapter 1 provides a brief history of the flex-shaft and explains how a flex-shaft works. It includes color pictures and diagrams of the various parts of the machine from the inside out. The next five chapters describe various types of flex-shafts and accessories available, with the purpose of helping you decide which will best meet your needs.

Here are just a few examples of what you'll learn:

• The significance of rotations per minute (RPM) and horsepower.


• The differences between, and uses for, Jacobs chuck, collet, and hammering handpieces.


• How to choose a drill bit.


• Common uses for different shapes of burs and how to prolong bur life.


• How to choose which metal alloy bur you should use for a particular job.


• The basic types of mandrels and their common uses.

Chapter 7 is devoted to types and styles of abrasives and grinding wheels. If you've ever browsed a supplier catalog for these, you know how difficult it can be to select what you need - without purchasing and trying them all. The charts and descriptions in this chapter are more simply laid out, yet more detailed, than you'll find in most of those catalogs.

Chapter 8 is short, briefly touching on the custom attachments that can be used with a flex-shaft, such as drill presses, high-volume jump ring makers, and a milling table. Although little detail is provided on how to use these devices, enough information is included to help you decide whether any of them might be worth the investment based on the kind of work you do.

Chapter 9 is also short and sweet. It lays out recommended maintenance procedures to keep a flex-shaft running smoothly. If you'd like to learn exactly how to clean and lubricate your machine, this is a chapter for you.

Chapter 10 contains some neat tips and tricks by experienced jewelers who are regular contributors to The Ganoksin Project website forum (more on Ganoksin to follow). These include how to create "A 60-Second Tube Setting" and "Bottled Up: Creating a Safety Shield." These are neat little instructions and bits of advice. (I plan to make use of all of them at my bench.)

The book concludes with a "Jeweler's Resource" section. These are essentially full-page ads/information blocks for entities who supported or participated in publication of the book. They include suppliers, schools, a casting company, and the two organizations who partnered as the book's publishers. All are respected members of the professional jewelry making community.

The Partnership Behind the Book

Making the Most of Your Flex-shaft is the first volume in an anticipated series of books called Maximum Bench Work. The series is being published through a partnership between Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America (MJSA) and The Ganoksin Project.

The MJSA is a trade association representing the jewelry manufacturing industry in the United States. It publishes an award-winning monthly magazine called AJM: The Authority on Jewelry Manufacturing and operates the MJSA Jewelry Academy.

The Ganoksin Project is considered to be the jewelry-making industry's most significant online resource for exchange of information. It offers free articles, advice, and a massive community forum full of detailed jewelry making questions and answers. Many members of the forum have years of experience as professional jewelers.

The large supply company Rio Grande is also a "prime sponsor" of this book, and The Foredom Electric Co. and 3M Inc. are "patrons."

Review

This is a great book to have on hand if you're seriously considering purchasing a flex-shaft, or if you own one but want to make better use of it.

The information about components and accessories can save you money and time by helping you choose which are best suited to your work. I especially like the many summary charts which appear throughout the book. These make for quick reference and easy comparison between pieces and parts.

What you will not find are detailed instructions on how to perform the specific tasks your flex-shaft is capable of doing. Instead, you'll simply learn that they are possible. For example, you'll learn that a flame bur can be used to "prepare seats for small stones" (page 32), but there is no demonstration of exactly how this is done. Granted, many of these techniques are probably not "rocket science," but if you've never tried them before, it's best to consult a more project-oriented book or take a class to make sure you're doing things properly.

(The exception to this rule is Chapter 10, "Beyond the Basics," which does provide nice step-by-step instructions for the actual projects contained there.)

On the other hand, the book certainly doesn't leave you out in the cold regarding what to do and generally how to do it. For instance, I learned that I should be using water with some sanding and texturing procedures where I wasn't before, and I finally learned why some of my brushes have been wearing down too quickly.

After reading the book, I also feel much more confident that I can use and maintain my flex-shaft properly. I'm actually looking forward to, rather than dreading, my next purchase of supplies and accessories.

At the time of this writing the retail price for a new copy of Making the Most of Your Flex-shaft is $34.95 US. Since I'm accustomed to jewelry-making books that are a little less expensive, I expected this book to be larger in size than it is. It is a trade-size paperback with 96 pages total.

However, it's important to remember that this is a niche publication and essentially a resource for the trade - not a mass-produced popular-market book. Also, it's published in part by The Ganoksin Project, which provides an unbelievable amount of jewelry making, gemstone, and metals information for free every day on the Internet. They rely on fundraising and donations to keep them going, and I feel they deserve to be fairly compensated for their books. This, combined with the utility and uniqueness of the book, make it a reasonable purchase.

Pick up a copy of Making the Most of Your Flex-shaft on Amazon.com.

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If you're not quite ready for a professional flex-shaft machine, you might start out instead with the popular Dremel brand rotary tool. With this kit (the one I used before purchasing my Foredom), you receive a removable flex shaft with handpiece, as well as some basic accessories to get you started.

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Chris Franchetti Michaels is a writer and jewelry artisan specializing in beaded designs, wire work, and metal fabrication. She is the author of the books Teach Yourself Visually: Jewelry Making and Beading, Beading Quick Tips, and Wire Jewelry Quick Tips. Visit her website BeadJewelry.net for more jewelry-making help and inspiration.