Lee Marshall
lmarshal@bonnydoonengineering.com

Well, Paul....Let's step back into your time frame for a bit:

You, as a master metalsmith would have had an entire "back room" filled with apprentices, working for room and board, just for the chance to learn the craft of silversmithing. In those days, the value of the metal was about eight times the value of the labor (give or take a little). You probably would not even do any of the actual metalwork, as your hands and wrists had already been damaged through constant abuse, but would instead do nothing more than use your stamp to identify the pieces as coming from the Revere studio.
I am not denigrating your contributions, and you were an excellent craftsman, but you became more of a salesman and representative of the organization as the years took their toll (not to mention having to take a late night horse ride).

I am sure that some of the pieces that the apprentices raised would have been finished by you, but you could not (even then) afford the time to create the sheet, planish the material to an even thickness, (I believe that the first rolling mill in the colonies was erected in the 1650's for wrought iron, and didn't make it into the precious metal field until much later), raise the bowl through it's various courses and annealings, eliminate the fire-scale, etc. That was for the workers to accomplish. The master smiths that you had working for you would take the rough pieces and do the finishing.

Now, let's transport ourselves back to the present day:

That back room of apprentices working for room and board is a rather rare commodity nowadays. I have heard that they are actually an extinct breed, having long ago passed through the "endangered" catagory. What the Volume and Form press is providing is the volume (just like the apprentices). It is up to the metalsmith to create the form. This is where the name of the press came from. It is a partnership between the helper and the master.

One of the improvements to the process that the V&F press brings to the table is the uniformity of the metal. It provides even thickness over the entire surface with no "hot spots" that require special care to avoid damaging the piece. Also, the forming action is much more gentle to the metal. There is only one annealing required in most cases (less chance for fire-scale). The metal is moved over the entire surface at the same time, eliminating the multiple tiny hammer blows that stress the metal in a much more exaggerated manner.

You never shied away from using machinery in all of your endeavors, whether it was for making holloware, flatware or gunpowder. Is your observation questioning the ability of the metalsmith to make something out of a raw shape, or are you just envious that you no longer have that group of indentured slaves providing you with pieces to finish?

Lee