“How to Buy Diamonds” & “Jewelry Design” October 12, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Education , trackbackYesterday I attended two seminars in central Bangkok in order to consider whether I’m interested in learning more about gemstones.
Getting to the place took some serious co-ordination. A bike ride to the front of the village, motorbike to the riverboat, river-taxi to pratunam, a long walk from pratunam to Siam Square skytrain, a skytrain journey to Chong-Nonsi and a long walk from there to the Jewelry Trade Center. Even inside the building it took me quite some time to realize that to go up to the 33rd floow I had to get to the 6th floor and pass through a security system to take another lift. I got there in the end with 30 minutes to spare.
So far so good.
The “How to buy Diamonds” seminar covered many things I’d not known about before. Aside from detailing a little more about Caret, Clarity, Cut and Color, we also learnt about the different treatments which are used to modify the colour and appearance of diamonds such as irradiation.
We next were introduced to the fundamentals of Jewelry design which, although I’m not considering further study of, it was suprisingly interesting. We began to learn how to sketch gemstones, how to create a tri-view image of jewelry so that it can be clearly be communicated to a workshop and we were introduced to the basics of using JewelCAD on the computer. For me I found the discussion on how to mount stones onto rings very appealing. The presenter talked of which mountings protected the stones, hid the blemishes, allowed the most light to reach the stone etc. We were also taught about the different types of gold too and I found it quite fascinating that in Thailand only gold about 23 karat (96.5%) is allowed to be sold (although aparently 18 karat is available here) whereas in the UK it is legal to sell gold as low as 9 karat.
I also took a short tour of the ‘school’ which boasts over 8,000 gemstones available for inspection, some modern looking labs and a comprehensive library which they seem to be very proud of. The staff seemed very welcoming, although should I decide to do a diploma with them, then for the nearly 200,000 baht (over $5000) it would cost me, I’m sure they had every reason to be nice.
I have paid in full for my 1-week class next week entitled “Introduction to Gemstones” and have a fascinating coursebook to work through before then. Next week I’ll be traveling to the school each day by taxi although I’m not yet sure how I’ll get home in the rush hour. I’m certain that I’ll have a lot of fun next week.
By Friday the 21st I’ll have a much better idea as to what I’ll be doing next year. Should I decide to take the 6 month course then my lifestyle will change dramatically. Firstly I’ll have to move out of Sammakorn before January and into an apartment more central. The convenience of this will be far outset by me paying probably 3 or 4 times the rent that I do now, for a quarter of the space. I’ll also be committed to study 9-12 monday to Friday until the end of March. This is quite a big leap for me considering I have no commitments on my time at all right now.
The diploma will not be easy, although to me that’s reassuring. Looking at the course schedule I’ll be able to take about a month away in April to spend with Lisa and Tik and I can resume my stuying again in May, completing all 4 modules before August 2006. This does fit in rather well with my plans and also with Tiks.
Another alternative is that I could do a 1-month basic course instead. This would be significantly cheaper but I am worried that should I really enjoy that then I’ll regret not having done the diploma instead.
I’ll be interested to see how things develop.
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?