| Repetitive Micro-Fold Forms Using an Industrial Tube Wringer: Small
Scale Applications for Jewelry and Sculpture
By Jack Berry
Published by Smithing Bench Press, 411 Calle Familia, San Clemente, CA, 92672-2111
2001. Softcover, color, 47 pages
$15.50 + $2 Shipping and Handling
Reviewed by Tim McCreight
 I
found this book interesting in three ways — what it covers, how it is stated,
and the way it comes to us. Let me elaborate. The subject of the book is a technical
process developed by the author and others around him at a community college in
California. They used a commercial device called a tube wringer to create corrugated
metal. Using a variety of hand and die manipulations, the metal sheets were then
given a wide range of patterns — and in the process, the thin sheet was strengthened
sufficiently to be used in jewelry.
The basic operation involves pressing a thin sheet of metal between grooved
paddle wheels. The wavy sheet that results is further crimped by hand with pliers
and then hammered. The author draws a comparison to fold forming: “This procedure
is really a micro-version of simple, repetitive fold forming, [and allows] rapid
preparation of three- dimensional structures.” As we have seen with fold
forming, which Charles Lewton-Brain introduced in 1985, variations seem to grow
exponentially. Every idea gives rise to two possible variations, and each of these
triggers yet another option. Berry pursues many of these, explaining the process
and including photos. The images are exciting and helpful, though I wish they
were better integrated into the text.
Jack Berry comes from a scientific background and describes his book as a description
of a group of experiments. This view lets us look over the shoulder of a systems
thinker as he probes new territory. Each step in the process is described in precise
detail, making this a book that demands to be read twice — once to get the
thesis and again in the studio as you recreate the experiments. Readers with a
scientific background will feel right at home here, but to the uninitiated, the
prose can seem dense.
The physical presence of the book — the fact that it exists at all —
provides another level of interest for me. It was not too long ago that making
a book required the support of a publishing house. The requirement to make a profit
drove the companies to broad-based, large audience topics. It was hard enough
to get a book on jewelry published, much less a book devoted to a topic as specific
as micro folding. Mr. Berry has used the new technologies of desktop publishing
to create the book himself. This combination of experimentation, technology, and
entrepreneurialism offers more important possibilities for the field. How many
radical advances and clever tricks never got out of an individual workshop in
the last 50 years? Thanks to Jack Berry for helping to open this door a bit further.
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