Lately I've been preparing for a series of workshops to teach budding silversmith/jewelry artists how to add faceted gems into their designs.

It is a marvel how good one's eyesight really needs to be to successfully set 2, 3 and 4 mm stones, unless of course, you have some serious magnification to assist you.

It's even more of a challenge to try and teach someone how to manipulate bits of metal too tiny to see at arms length, in a class of 6 or 7.

Younger people may be able to get away with optivisors or reading glasses. But I need a scope, and so that's the way I'm going to teach my first workshop.

I spent most of the evening testing out a new setup, consisting of my scope, a camera, my laptop, and a digital projector. The results were not awesome, but I hope they will do, with actual eyes in the scope or a loupe filling in the gaps.

The primary drawback of the digital setup is high contrast (due to the reflective nature of silver), and the monocular nature of the projected image.

Having a stereoscopic microscope (or reading glasses/optivisors strong enough for your eyes to see what you are doing) is a great help.

I am both excited and fearful of receiving feedback from my first victims.