The Knew Concepts Bench Pin has been designed from the ground up for piercing and bench work. It is machined from a solid 3/16″slab of stainless steel. First, so that it is stiff and rigid enough to support your work without bouncing as you cut, yet remain thin enough not to interfere with your full stroke. This thinness is helpful when doing delicate piercing. Second, it is stainless steel so that even when you do cut it, it doesn’t contaminate your sweeps.
The Knew Concepts Bench Pin has several other features built in.
- It is designed to ft onto a standard jeweler’s dovetail plate, the same as your other bench accessories.
- It comes with an adjustable ring hook, designed to make cutting rings for sizing a breeze.
- It also has an adjustable brass guide fence that can guide your cuts at right angles, or any angle up to 60 degrees, in 15 degree increments.
- It comes with a pair of posts that can be attached to the pin to guide a #30 flex-shaft handpiece straight up-and-down, for quick drilling, or any other activity where having the flex-shaft at right angles to the face of the bench pin would be helpful, like cutting ring seats in waxes, or wax milling. The limits are entirely those of your imagination. We’ ll just keep things square.
The basics of cutting with a bench pin designed specifically for piercing are simple: it all comes down to support. The ultimate goal is to support the material you’ re cutting, as close as possible to where the cutting is taking place. That’s why there is no wide “V”on this pin, but rather a series of small openings. Always use the smallest opening you can, and always be as close to one of the side walls as you can. That way the material will receive the most support from the pin, and be least likely to bend and break your blade. It really is that simple.
