Sapphire magazine Fire and Ice Joe Casiello

Gold has been the standard measure of both wealth and status for thousands of years. But a simple nugget of rock panned from a stream in the Rockies or blasted out of the hard rock of a deep northern mine is just a raw material.
It takes a craftsman of high calibre to know how to work with the metal and create a work of art.
For Tottenham resident Joe Casiello, that craftsmanship comes from over twenty years of experience as a goldsmith.
"When i started out, I was going to be a dental technician," he says, but soon found his interest was working with molds and soft metals with more of a creative approach. "I veered off into goldsmithing as the trades are simliar."
He went to George Brown College for three years and learned all about goldsmithing, gem setting, and gem grading, and backed it up with courses in business as well.
Completing school is one thing, but finding employment in a field that generally requires several years experience just to get your foot in the door is a whole different matter.

A call to a jeweller in Brampton proved to be a lucky stroke when Joe went to interview with Dave Carol of Llorac Jewellery Repair.
"When you get into the trade they usually want five years experience," Joe explains. "He was nice enough to hire me and I was there for 11 years."
After a slow-down in the industry, Joe realized that there simply wasn't enough work at the store to keep him employed.
Working part time at Sears Canada since he was in high school, he kept his part time job while working at the jewellery repair store.
It worked out well. He became a full time associate with Sears and opened his own home based jewellery repair business called Fire and Ice Goldsmithing.
His Tottenham shop is fully equiped with the tools unique to the jewellry repair industry.
After twenty years, he knows all the little details of working with gold and gemstones that only comes with the hands-on experience of crafting the metal.
"For me, it's mostly custom work," he explains. "I specialize in engagement rings."
His work also includes repairs, gem settings, and specializing in working with high carat quality gold - 18 to 22 carat.
It is the fine details of working with gold and gemstones that make the difference.
The settings are tiny - requiring skilled work when placing a small diamond onto a ring. With tiny stones, one slip, and a small diamond will fall.

He jokes about his early days in the trade. "I tell people I've spent 15 years doing the work and five years crawling around on the floor looking for stones."
His work is flawless - and he gurantees it.
He gave a demonstration, taking an old ring and resizing it - a process which didn't take that long but produced amazing results.
He examines the ring first, to determine if the setting will be affected by expanding the diameter of the ring.
Then carefully cutting through the existing band, the ring is opened to the new size.
He carefully inserts a new piece of gold and joins it to the existing band. After working on it to feather the new piece and make it part of the ring, a final cleaning and polishing produces a newly resized piece of jewellery with a flawless, invisible seam.
It's a unique talent and craft that many people think requires travel to a larger centre to this type of work done.
But locally, you can have expert jewellry repair without ever leaving town.
For more information, you can give Joe a call.
His number is 905-936-6643