Before Makt got to crafting for the day, he had a few errands to take care of. His pleas for a raise had finally gotten satisfied and he was making a little extra per day! Now that he was finally making the "big money" he also got the responsibility to decide which one of the employees did what each day. It had been quite a struggle finding out which employees excelled under the right conditions, but he was getting better. Today was expected to be a slow day so he would have the easily bored fellow doing active busy work to make sure he didn't doze off for the umpteenth time.
In addition to personnel responsibilities, Makt was now also responsible for adapting the product to match demand. This was easier said than done, especially since he still spent most of his day in the back making jewelry for custom orders. During his breaks, he had seen young women on many occasions crowding the jewelry store, looking for golden necklaces. Even though he had made many necklace components the previous season, the women just didn't want to buy from this shop. It was for this reason that Makt would be changing up the design of the shop necklaces so that he might be able to push a couple more necklaces every now and then.
But what if he couldn't predict the market and he ended up with no necklace sales? The backup plan was to sell to a smaller jewelry shop which didn't have the resources or the skill to match his quality. The shop owner was more than happy to commit to a price verbally, but Makt had come back to confirm the deal on several occasions and the price always changed. It was for this reason that he made them write and sign a document stating the price and date the payment was to be made. They were to not pay per necklace, but rather per weight of the gold being sold.
After a very long morning of clerical duties, Makt finally found the time to get back to what he loved -crafting. He had made several long lengths of 14 carat gold that needed to be shaped into a chain necklace. This is where things got particularly tricky. Any novice could take a metal and make rings out of them. The design he was to follow did not have uniform ring sizes which meant he would have to measure out each ring to the precise required length. The sunlight was starting to fade ever so slightly now. After how late he had stayed the previous night, however, Makt had given up any chance of going home before sundown.
Makt was just about to measure out the first piece of gold to be made into a ring when he was once again interrupted by Karo who called out from across the room, "if you're going to measure each ring you're going to be here for days on end. Take a small rod and use that for reference." Makt couldn't believe he hadn't thought of that before and scuttled around the workshop until he found an assortment of metal rods. He measured the circumference of each rod until he found ones that would work for the chain he was trying to make.
The process of bending the golden coils into the right shapes was not all that complicated but it demanded a great amount of attention to detail. He hadn't made that much extra gold alloy and if he made more than a few mistakes he would have to make even more or risk making the necklace too small. To make sure he wouldn't mess up he jotted down the sequence of ring sizes and shapes that he needed to make. Every time he made a ring he would be sure to mark it off on the piece of paper.
After the first ring was made, Makt took a small clamping tool and forced the two ends together. It was crude, but all chains started out looking like this before they were softened. Makt checked off ring number one on his paper, slid the gold coil onto the first ring, and measured out the size of the next ring using the appropriate rod. Once satisfied, he clamped the ring closed and broke off the ring from the golden coil. This is how the young man would spend most of his afternoon and by the end of it he would surely feel stiff as a board.
When Makt was about half way done, Karo called it quits and left the shop to run errands. The sun as still shining in the distance but it wouldn't be all that long before sundown. Makt was told to inspect the gem Karo had slaved over all day and take notes if he spotted any imperfections. Along with this task he was told to reference a series of hand drawn schematics detailing each and every angle that Karo had cut the gem with. It was incredibly overwhelming just to look at so he merely did the best that he could.
The young man would examine the gem with steady fingers, hold it up to candle light, look at the correct drawing, then move to the next edge. He wasn't exactly sure why he had been given this task since he had never even seen a gem with this many edges before in his life. Perhaps he was simply supposed to notice any obvious lumps or defects? Everything looked perfect as it was and it gave the boy a mild headache just trying to find just one error. In the end he didn't up finding anything wrong with the shiny rock.
Makt had finished inspecting the gem and bore a defeated demeanor when his boss came back. The elderly man looked quite satisfied that the second pair of eyes didn't find any errors and said, "don't worry lad, if you can't see any errors then the customer probably can't either. I was rushing to get this finished today and I'm glad it didn't turn out so bad." Makt gulped, not knowing if he was even ready to handle a good quality cut by his boss's standards. He wanted to chat with Karo a bit more but he had more work to do and the old man looked like he was ready to sleep.
Makt bid his employer good night and continued on with making his necklace. The sun was setting now and Makt wanted to make sure he got this done soon so that he didn't have another nearly sleepless night. Over and over he looped the golden coils through the rings. He looped so many rings that he was beginning to get quite frustrated.
The only thing motivating him to hide his annoyance was not wanting his boss to notice. Eventually, the man ended up with a completed necklace. He then looked over each and every single ring to make sure they were the correct size and shape. He found only one error which he had to remove and replace with the small amount of spare gold. The spare gold was placed into a furnace-safe container labeled "14 carat gold" which would be quite useful in a couple minutes. He placed the container into the furnace and let it start to melt.
Now that he was one hundred percent sure that his necklace matched his instructions, it was time for Makt to do the last couple steps in polishing the product up for the customer. He washed the necklace thoroughly with water and then placed the necklace onto a flat ceramic plate. Using used tongs he would place it into the oven and start increasing the heat steadily. He would examine the chain every few minutes until he could clearly see the clamped areas of the rings were starting to soften and become uniform.
Once the clamping areas were completely smoothed out it was time to remove the ceramic plate and splash the gold with a liberal amount of water. He then took a pair of tongs labeled "for 14 carat finish ONLY" and used them to pick up the necklace off the ceramic. This final step was to give the necklace its finishing coat of gold to remove any small imperfections from view. The container filled with spare 14 carat had now heated up and its contents were fully melted. Makt lowered the necklace into the liquid concoction then immediately lifted the necklace up before his creation could even think about melting.
Makt would hold the necklace above the liquid and watch as the necklace dried with its brilliant finishing coat. He would then dip the necklace once again into water to cool it then placed it back on the work table before removing the container of molten gold and placing it where it belonged. His work was finally done and it was time to start heading home.
Makt began his next day like any other these days, managing the business that wasn't even his. Every day that he did so, he felt more and more qualified to just break off from the store and form his own establishment. The amount of extra work he was getting definitely wasn't worth an extra bit of money per day, but he was still gracious to have gotten some kind of raise. The work he had been doing had changed something in him lately. He was caring less and less about how people felt and found that it was much easier to make decisions if he treated people like commodities.
"Sir, is something wrong?"
The question came from a job applicant that he was interviewing. The man had lost himself in his thoughts as the teenager rambled on about why he was qualified to work at the shop. He had sat through at least a dozen of these speeches over the course of the past hour and it was getting very boring. Makt would tell the kid the same thing he had told all the other applicants, "please wait outside with the others. Who we hire will be determined based on performance."
Makt exited the room with the final applicant and gathered everyone together. "Listen up! Today we will be hiring two new people and possibly firing the worst of our current employees if they can't keep up. I've made a list here with chores, jewelry crafting, and clerical tasks. In one hour I will announce the results."
The tasks were completed over the following hour, but Makt knew which applicants wouldn't make it within the first few minutes. He had initially thought that finding the most talented applicants was going to be difficult, but they had differentiated themselves quite nicely. In the end, he had two superstar applicants and one employee who just couldn't keep up out of laziness. The choice of who to hire and who to fire was obvious. Makt announced the results without emotion and left to the workshop before he could feel bad about making the decision.
Already stressed from this morning's managerial tasks, Makt was not in a particularly good mood as he continued work on the ring he had been tasked to size-up. He had completed about half the work the previous day and needed to finish today to meet the deadline. "Where did I leave off," he would think as he recalled putting extra gold onto the ring. He still had to add a bit more gold then work on the patterns.
Makt took a furnace safe container of spare 22 carat gold and heated it up with the intent to fully melt it. The whole heating process would take a while which meant he had plenty of time to figure out how he would go about replicating the patterns. Perhaps he could make use of etching or stamping. Or perhaps there were techniques that he didn't even know of that might come in handy. Most patterns were simple enough to replicate for Makt's skill level but there was no doubt that he would need help with the more complicated ones.
While the young crafter thought to himself and absentmindedly sanded down the rough edges of the cut, his boss came in holding a plate of food. He placed the food on a table and said, "It looks like you took my advice. Come get me if you need any help." Karo then left leaving Makt wondering how the old man knew exactly when his input was needed. Makt was not Karo's first nor only assistant so perhaps he had a feel for when newcomers would run into trouble.
Now that the concoction of spare 22 carat gold had finally started to melt, it was time for Makt to place the ring back onto the vice grip. He lowered the mechanism so that the ring was just above a ceramic plate where the spare gold would collect. He then had to figure out how he was going to flex the ring so that the inner circumference would be equal to exactly one size larger. Given more time the crafter would have made his own spacing fixture but that would be a project in and of itself. He was also very wary of shaping a spare piece of metal in the event that it flexed or melted due to the heat. No, he was going to have to settle for a rigid material, like bone!
Makt wasn't sure if he would even find bone in the workshop. Of all materials it was the lowest of low when it came to extravagancy. Nevertheless his boss' workshop did not disappoint and had an entire drawer full of bones, albeit a very dusty drawer. Makt picked out one that he thought would serve his purpose and spent the next half hour filing it down to match the diameter that he desired. He then re-measured to ensure it would do its job before slipping it in the ring's hole. The ring was made out of near pure gold so it flexed quite easily as the spacer did its job.
Now it was time to add in the gold. Makt stirred the gold concoction and thought about the best way to add the gold to the ring. He supposed any method would work so long as he didn't get too any gold onto the rest of the ring. He used a separate metal rod to dip into the container and pull out what Makt estimated would be a couple drops of gold. The rod was then transported to the ring and was touched to the open space at the bottom of the ring. This was repeated over and over until the ring had a glob of gold completely covering the place where the gap used to be.
Makt examined the glob of gold and grabbed a piece of metal about the size of a finger nail. He oh so carefully removed about half of the glob while it was still somewhat liquid. Makt continued to run the metal across the glob as it cooled to room temperature in order to make sure it came out as smooth as possible. Once he was confident the gold had cooled inside and out Makt obtained a small file and began to remove the remains of the glob. Any novice would have simply filed perpendicular to the ring because it was the easiest and fastest option. But as usual, Makt took the more experienced and more difficult approach of sanding in the direction of the loop. Makt sanded with rough paper at first and slowly moved to smoother and smoother paper until it was impossible to tell that the ring had ever been cut.
Makt examined the ring and saw that he would have to be reproducing quite a bit of pattern with how much gold he had used. He placed the ring on a table and ventured out into the shop where several customers were browsing while Karo observed from his corner. He wasn't a typical salesman jumping to sell to everyone that might be interested. He chose to only deal with those who were committed to making a trade. Makt took a seat and waited for the customers to finish window shopping and left.
"Sir," Makt said, "I need some help with recreating some patterns. I'm not sure I have the dexterity to replicate some of them."
Karo grunted and moved to lock the shop door. It was nearly closing time and he wanted to get this ring over and done with as much as Makt did. The two made their way back into the workshop and got to work. Makt pointed out which ones he thought he needed help with and Karo demonstrated the correct way to replicate the complex curves and angles that were etched around the perimeter of the ring. He would start the pattern then Makt would do his best to copy the work of his superior. The moment Makt would move his hand in the wrong position Karo would correct the direction of the tools.
Before long the two had worked through teaching Makt the tool sizes that were most useful in creating tiny yet intricate designs. There was a lot of work to be done as far as doing such work on his own, but Makt had to start somewhere.
"Lad you forgot to turn off the furnace. And make sure you save as much of that gold as possible or it's coming out of your pay." With that Karo departed for his private quarters and left Makt to finish up.
Makt followed his instructions and dumped all the extra gold into the concoction and shut off the furnace. All there was left to do now was to polish the ring and reattach all the fixtures. The polishing was done with a careful hand to make sure the patterns were not touched. For the pattern littered outside of the ring he would use a material almost as smooth as skin to give the ring its final shine. The fixtures, were relatively simple to reattach and gems were glued securely back into place. Makt placed the ring back into the vice so that the adhesives would dry properly overnight then he headed home.