Have you ever used a jump ringer? You can find it in RIO or Stuller, it comes with round mandrels from about 10mm ID to about a 1.5mm ID and a cutting guide and separating wheel you attach to your flexshaft. Pop it into a vise and spin away! You can make hundreds in an hour and they are all uniform. Not the cheapest tool out there but well worth the >caysh< for what you do and the hassle tiny jumps cause. You can also get a set of oval mandrels for it.

--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamont

That's what I use. I've recently upgraded to the Mark 2 All Metals one so I can work with Platinum at some point. I've seen a dramatic improvement over the flex shaft one. But the blade still takes out a hefty chunk out of the jump rings when they're small which makes time a little oval unless you squash them down a bit. Large rings don't really have that issue, but I don't work with large rings, heh. I don't use their mandrels though. I spent months digging through my teachers desks and around the shop finding the right size mandrels for the proper size ring so I get a nice, tight weave. One day I'd like to see if I can get some custom made ones though. To get the right sizes, I need crap like 1.3mm (think my smallest is 1.1mm, and it needs to be that size and not 1.0mm to work right) and they don't sell that kind of stuff. Would also allow me to work larger without the hassle of trying to find mandrels that will work. Which is one reason I don't work larger, the other is that I don't want to. But I would like to be able to offer one or two gauges larger for "mens sizes."

The only way I know how to get a virtually perfect jump ring at the size I work with is to do it by hand with a modified razor blade so it turns into a tiny saw. Jeweler's saws don't have the stability the razor blade gives and the cut is amazingly small since the blade is tapered and not squared like a jeweler's saw blade or the Jumpringer blade, barely leaves a gap. But I'm very happy with my Jumpringer. I'd rather give the rings a little bit of extra work to round them out than spend hours making jumprings. 18 hours to make a 16in necklace is bad enough as it is, heh. Don't need to extend that to 20+ for it.

I may, however, create some sort of jig one of these days that protects and prevents me from having to use a lot of pressure to hold them when I hand cut for some special projects one day, like 28ga or 30ga work. But for every day work, no thanks, heh.

I've never worked that small before in jumps, but scroll work is tiny like that and I use drill bits to form them. Platinum is a sweet metal to work once you know how but it's the getting the know how that's a bitch and then they have new platinum/cobalt alloys that SUCK!!!!
Have you considered using the new thermo plastics to make cutting jigs? I prefer the gray stuff since you can nuke it over and over and it cools to a very hard form, strong enough to hold a piece firmly for brightcut or hammering on, as long as it doesn't heat up it will hold like a vise.

--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamont

Don't know anything about thermo plastics. I don't know a lot of stuff about anything made probably within the last 20 years The people that taught me are really old school. Is it from Rio or something?

Thermo plastics have been available to jewelry for about 6 years. There are 2 types I've seen, the white stuff comes in pellet form and you heat it in hot water but to remove the piece you have to heat it in water again,and after awhile it gets wooly and doesn't work real well. I personally don't like this type, The other is a gray stuff that you can heat in a microwave initially and when you need to move the piece just steam it and it comes loose and you can reposition it.I've used the same chunk of this for a year now. Both cool to a hard plastic that you can hammer on and will hold a piece securely. You can pack it under bridges and hollow pieces for support while you work on that part. You can get it from Rio or Stuller.

--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamont

Ah, like that JetSet stuff? If that's it, than I have seen it at least. I'd probably have to use the white stuff, unfortunately due to the economy, I'm living with my mom until I can start generating income and go back home. And she doesn't own a microwave.

Though, I pretty much refuse to make anything so hollow that it needs support to be worked on, if a piece can't support itself, it doesn't deserve to be made if you ask me. And who ever came up with the idea of hollow chains needs to be tracked down with a time machine and stopped as well as any other idiot that thinks it's a cleaver idea. I hate that shit and I pretty much refuse to touch anything hollow. Anything that junky doesn't need to be repaired, one can probably get the same piece of shit several times over with that you'll spend repairing it repeatedly since it will fall apart. If we're talking about something hollow that actually has strength, that's one thing. But that stuff is rare and probably custom or designer and that's going to make it expensive and is more about being light than being cheap.

Yes,JetSet, it's the one you soften in hot water but you can also do the gray stuff in hot water too. There are times when even a strong piece needs under support to be worked on such as channeling with an air line underneath or brightcut.
I hate hollow stuff too but when your boss says fix it, you fix it. You are right though, who ever invented hollow chain needs to be hunted down and beaten, but as far as fixing some thin crappy chain repeatedly, that's called job security and then you sell them a replacement.

--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamont

Meh, I'm my own boss and I don't ever plan on working for anyone ever again. It doesn't work for me and it's bad for my health. I've had nothing but horrible bosses in every job I've ever had (not just jewelry, though they were by far the worst.) I replaced on guy as a polisher who quit immediately after the shop manager threw a pair of pliers at him. Then I had someone who never gave me anything to do and then complained I was slow (I am slow, I don't deny it. But when you don't give me one or two things to do a day, I'm going to take my sweet time because I know you're not going to give me anything else.) The last guy wasn't really my boss because I'm freelance now, but I was using his shop and equipment. Apparently my idea of being my own boss and his idea are completely different and then he started lying to me about how much work there was saying there was no work. Which was bullshit because he had months of backed up work (he's got stuff that was due a year ago.) He's got a virtual monopoly on the repairs in town, there's only one other place that does repairs here, but he's probably got 80% of the town's business and he's extremely unreliable and never did any work. Don't complain about not getting work done if you're going to talk to customers about sports and shit for 6 hours a day.

I had stupid bosses but never that bad and none have ever thrown tools at me or another employee. If you only had a few jobs a day it's stupid to hurry. My first real jeweler job I did 13 repairs on the first day and thought I was hot shit. That was November 22, by March of the next year I was turning 70 ( yes! it's true!)a day. Gotta have work to get fast and proficient.
If that's the way for you then more power to you, it does beat being an employee in many ways. If I didn't have kids to support it'd be the way for me too, but with my husband just starting to build the CAD business we need that reliable income. There may come a day though when I'll have to learn to do the easy stuff to keep up. Right now we're working 50-60 hours a week each, it's a killer!

--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamont