Stage 1: Basic Technical Skills Test — 5 down, 45 to go
This post is part of my ongoing apprenticeship in traditional goldsmithing through Jewellery Training Solutions, under master goldsmith Peter Keep. You can read the full bench journal and follow the project sequence on the Apprenticeship Journey page.
Stage 1 doesn’t give you much to show off. That’s the point.
This first stretch of Peter Keep’s Jewellery Training Solutions (JTS) apprenticeship is a technical skills check: the fundamentals that everything else leans on. Templates. Measuring. Marking. The quiet accuracy work that decides whether a later project feels clean and controlled—or turns into a slow grind of “fixing” problems that never needed to exist.
By the end of December 2025, I finished Stage 1, packaged up the evidence of the work, and submitted it to Peter for assessment. Not long after, I received my Stage 1 certificate. It’s a small piece of paper, but it represents something real: a baseline standard that I can build on with confidence.
Stage 1 is made up of five projects, and each one forces a different kind of discipline:
- Marking templates: learning to trust your layout because you earned it—clean lines, clear intent, no ambiguity. (3 attempts before succeeding)
- Drilling test: holes placed where they belong, done cleanly, without wandering or tearing things up. (5 attempt before succeeding)
- Saw piercing test: control over the cut—straight, curved, inside corners—without forcing the blade or inventing “design changes” mid-stream. (2 attempts before succeeding)
- Basic bench skills: filing flat and square, working to a line, keeping surfaces honest. The stuff that quietly separates tidy work from hopeful work. (Got it on the first attempt 😁)
- Friction fitting test: tolerance and restraint—removing metal deliberately, stopping before you’ve gone too far, and letting the fit tell you the truth. (2 attempts before succeeding)
None of these projects are glamorous. But they’re the kind of old-school skills that keep this craft healthy. Jewelry-making is art, yes—but it’s art with consequences. A beautiful idea still needs precision and attention to detail to survive contact with metal, and if there’s one value this stage keeps hammering home, it’s excellence in craftsmanship: not as a slogan, but as a daily practice—especially when the work is repetitive and nobody’s watching.
So: first stage done. Five projects behind me. Forty-five to go. I’m not treating that number like pressure—I’m treating it like a map.
Back to the bench. If you want the next chapter, check in here next week—and follow along on Instagram @pinedaandco.