hello, new forum member

[cuongsy]

Hello, my name is Cuong Sy, I am a metal-smithing and jewelry design student at Rhode Island College. I've been obsessing quite a bit on engraving and am also in love with the Lindsey products. I can draw well and the jewelry I have made look spectacular. I would love to own an Artisan with CO2 foot pedal attachment. I have been researching air engravers day and night, reading as many forums/reviews as I can, right now I am leaning towards the Lindsey Artisan and CO2 attachment, due to it's portability I would be able to bring it to school and take it home. I would love to incorporate engraving into my jewelry making process, I believe it will offer me another design element to my pieces. Owning an Airgraver would make me the coolest kid at school, rocking an awesome air engrave...r all the chicks will love me.

This Summer I have been working on creating a jewelry studio, I have all the necessary tools sans a rolling mill. My only issue is that the studio is in my bedroom (in the basement, my room is fairly large, it takes up half of basement area). Yes, I realize I work with dangerous chemicals, metals, etc. I have good ventilation, BlueAir purifier (filters the air by .5 microns), window fan extracting air out of the room, a tower fan, and a desktop soldering fume extractor and shop vac w/work bench attachment for large particle cleanup. It's probably not such a good idea for me to have a co2 tank chilling in my bedroom, but if a cylinder were to leak, it's only 20oz, I'm sure I will live - go big or go home, I'm sure I've done worse things to my body in the past.

As mentioned before, I am interested in the Artisan with CO2 attachment and various other products offered here. I know the products I need in order to pull off engraving, and/or home diy productions. I would use the engraver on primarily silver and possibly wood.

Some questions I have:
is the experience engraving with the Airgraver similar to carving on ceramics (sgraffito)? Or is it more like creating a stamping plate out of linoleum?
is there any sort of payment plan that can be worked out? I can send you one of my fingers as collateral, until I can pay it off (months or less).

Below are pieces I have created this past semester (I recently finished my first semester as a metals and jewelry design student)

knuckle ring, sterling silver, rabbit fur
C. Sy 1.jpg
propeller hat, sterling silver
C. Sy 3.jpg
tigerseye, sterling silver, mokume gane
C. Sy 4a.JPG

[mrthe]

Hi! welcome to the forum