#76: Do You Actually Need a Hydraulic Press? A Real Conversation with Peter Gilroy

 There’s a point in your work where starting from scratch every time just doesn’t make sense anymore. 

In this episode, I sit down with Peter Gilroy of Bonny Doon Engineering to talk about how the hydraulic press can shift your process from one-off making into something more repeatable and intentional. 

We get into what it actually does beyond cutting discs, how it changes the way metal moves, and why it can open up entirely new possibilities in your designs and production. 

This is not about buying more tools. It is about understanding when the right tool becomes a turning point. 

We cover: 

•  What die forming and coining actually mean 
•  Why press work creates strength, detail, and efficiency you cannot get by hand 
•  How one die can turn into an entire collection 
•  The difference between hobby presses and professional systems 
•  The idea of the “upgrade tax” and how to think long term 
•  How the press integrates with engraving, stone setting, and more 

If you have been wondering whether a hydraulic press makes sense for your work, this conversation will give you a much clearer way to think about it.
 
You can explore more about Bonny Doon at https://bonnydoontools.com
and see what might actually fit your studio.

If you want to go a little deeper, I share key takeaways and additional teaching from each episode through my email list at https://courtneygrayarts.com
.
 
And if you have the chance to watch this one on YT, it is worth it. The visuals really help bring these concepts to life.
 

Transcript

Peter Gilroy - Bonny Doon

[00:00:00] There's a point in most jewelers work where you realize you can't keep starting from scratch every time. You need some repeatability. You need systems. You need tools that actually support the way you want to work. And this is where I see that shift happen for a lot of people. Not adding more tools, but choosing the right ones and knowing when they actually make sense.

Speaker 3: Today we're talking about one of those tools, the Hydraulic Press. I'm joined by Peter Gilroy of Bonny Doon Engineering. They have been building presses and forming tools for over 35 years, and this is one of those conversations that really opens up what's possible in your studio. We get into how these tools actually work, where they fit, and what they can unlock in your process and your designs. And if you have the chance to watch this one, [00:01:00] it's worth it. There are a lot of visuals that really help it. Click jump over to YouTube at the Jeweler's View and check it out there. 

Courtney: Peter, for listeners who may know the Bonny Doon name.

But not the full story. Can you give us the short version of Bonny Doon and your role in the company today? Welcome,

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Thanks, Courtney. so Bonny Doon was born 35 years ago in Bonny Doon, California. Tiny little village just north of Santa Cruz. And it was an engineer, Lee Marshall, started learning oh, there's jewelers out there making these presses, and everybody was welding up these funky little steel boxes. And honestly, things weren't really that safe. People were doing some cool stuff and making some amazing things.

But he saw that and he was like, all right, cool. I can engineer this press to be better and to be more ergonomic, and most importantly, to be safe and to be very rigid so that we can handle 20 or a hundred tons of pressure [00:02:00] without. Danger, so that's the genesis of Bonny Doon And my uncle Phil Porier had been a jeweler for a long time.

The idea of being able to use a hydraulic press, make dies and do Repeated work. So the very first die he made it's actually sitting right behind me here. Made it out. What's, called Devcon but he didn't have a hydraulic press, he did have a, 7,000 pound diesel truck sitting out in the front yard. So he took the jack out of his

truck that you'd use to change tires,

went

out there,

put the jack under the front end of his

big Ford truck,

put

the die on top of the jack, and then

he actually lifted his truck up.

So now

all of a sudden he has

two to Three

tons of force

On that die. So that was his

Courtney: his 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: moment of being like, oh wow, this is really amazing.

Courtney: If we could create a controlled experience at the bench for this, that would, doesn't require a diesel truck.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Yeah.

And He had a

mentor that

learned raising from who was like, you have a [00:03:00] finite number of hammer beats in your arm. 

Courtney: arm.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: So him wanting to explore, wanting to do big vessels, all this other stuff he is okay, how can I make

this easier? and how can I preserve

my strength. Phil started working with

Lee from pretty early on.

in the beginning, and Phil is a master goldsmith, engraver stone cutter. He helped to design a lot of the tools. The three inch form box for doing silhouette dies and non-conforming dies was the first tool that Phil designed.

And then Lee started producing. That sort of synergistic relationship went on, lee developed all sorts of. Big presses. We still have what's called the volume and form press, and with it we can take an 18 inch disc and turn it into a 12 inch diameter hemisphere. 

Courtney: That is so cool. You're really stretching what we think of the limitations with metal, right? There's a perceived limitation in our mind. You can only stretch it this much. 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: It's tough to get people to understand and conceptualize that I've learned forging, I've [00:04:00] learned all the traditional hammer techniques and you can feel the metal. You're maybe putting 4,000 pounds into a piece of silver when you're wailing at it with a big hammer. And so now all of a sudden you put 40,000 pounds into that all of a sudden that silver becomes like soft clay and the way it moves it's amazing.

Courtney: Yeah, you can stretch it to its limits and it toughens it up. So it's hardening it as we go and the crystalline structure is becoming tighter and tighter as you stretch it, right? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: There's huge

benefits to cold forging and die striking the amount of strength and the way that the grain actually aligns with the piece 

and

gets tighter and longer And so you actually build up.

a ton of strength and it's

crazy 'cause we can do these like hollow forms in gold and we've done it before, like 28 gauge. We can die. Strike that in gold Hollow solder that onto a silver piece and then bend that into, a ring. and that hollow form, which you think would be fragile, this is Like

18 karat or 22 karat gold. That hollow [00:05:00] form doesn't collapse when you bend it.

into a ring. Part of the strength that we get from die striking these

pieces. And part of that's the beauty of the urethane that we're using

on the press.

Courtney: I started as a blacksmith, I was in blacksmithing school and welding technology and thinking that was my path, we worked with the Power Hammer and all of these big machines that could stretch and push the material, it reminds me of this and you're right, there's only a certain amount of hammer blows we have in our bodies.

A lot of us, as we get older too, you're gonna start feeling that repetition I have a friend who's been twisting metal for years and she's feeling it so much in her arm, in her sixties and seventies now so I think having the equipment that can create more longevity and sustainability for our bodies and our businesses,

there's a lot of family businesses out there, Peter, but what drives you to continue this business forward?

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: To

be honest, I was really busy making wedding rings and jewelry and found this cool little [00:06:00] niche of climbers and stuff. And my work spoke to them and that was actually, was going great.

Years ago I went to a.

North of New York on the Hudson River called Dia Beacon. And we got to meet this guy that was an artist engineer. He worked with the best artists around the world. And he was the guy that these incredible artists went to, to be like, how do I build this?

How do I do this? And talking to him was really inspirational I was like, oh wow, you're the person that actually makes dreams come true. Brings these things to life, and I'm a nerd. I love technology. I love the presses and die making

so I guess that was what ultimately inspired me to, take over Bonny Doon, purchase the company and start running it. 

ability to now help other people make.

beautiful art, and lend my experience and background in all of these technologies, to other

artists.

Courtney: That's a solid mission, when you own a business, we give it 150% as much as we can. And so that mission underneath why you're doing it [00:07:00] so important.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: I'm psyched to come to work 'cause there's like a reason for me.

to do what I'm doing. Our mission here is to really to help you the artist, the jeweler, to make beautiful things to make dreams come true. When I,

can make those visions reality it's like

the

most amazing.

fulfilling thing.

And it's fun. I know how to make the

tool To make that a

reality. 

Courtney: you like to solve problems. That's what an hydraulic press is for,

 To identify and solve a problem with customization or what have you 

With metal prices where they are right now, jewelers are thinking so much more carefully about how they use material and even what material they're using one of the advantages of die forming is that jewelers can often use thinner metal while still creating strong forms. . 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Yeah, for sure. Especially say we're working,

in gold at

$5,000 and 

Courtney: we're still gonna do, right? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: It's an amazing material and

it still has so

much value.

You can't cast, 30

gauge

gold

sheet.

into forms. There [00:08:00] are limitations.

in casting, you also have 

strength issues 

Essentially the heart of die striking all goes back to what we call conforming dies, a positive and a negative steel die it can give you insane detail in thin sheets,

and it can do it with relatively low pressures because you have the strength of that steel forming your metal. But because we have milled sheets,

we get, nice long grain.

when we're milling our sheet, and then when we die strike it, we further refine that grain structure. So casting tends to create large grain structure. It's tougher to polish. It's not as strong, but that tighter grain structure really makes things strong.

And there's a feel to it. I think the biggest thing for me is the finishing part of it

is effortless. You can , hit it real quick and you're like, boom,

polished and done.

We can make a die and we can use it in multiple different ways.

If it's designed right? We can also use it with different thicknesses of metal, I

could use that same die set with silver and do much thicker chunkier earrings, so that's [00:09:00] from the lean manufacturing

Old

school manufacturing,

you would just make a

hundred pieces of each design 

$40,000

jewelry

Courtney: what are some of the ways that you've seen shop owners really make that efficiency, change their lives and change their business. you're working with knife makers, there's other manufacturing starting to see the benefits of having a hydraulic press 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: There's all sorts of different stuff you can do with moving metal. I just worked with a guy who makes pendants and I was able to engineer a forming die and a cutting die. In that capacity, I saved about one to two hours per piece. So he is making a couple pieces a week, I just saved him eight hours.

a week.

And obviously custom tooling costs more than standard tooling, but it

really wasn't that much of an investment. You just saved six to eight hours a week. 

Courtney: a week.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Multiply that by 50 weeks

How much is your time worth? . 

 A lot of people, we've really helped

them do stuff that they [00:10:00] weren't able to do. I remember working with a company

that was doing filigree work. And for them to lay up like complex rings and bracelets and earrings flat and then form 'em without having any damage or defects.

, Amazing artist, Bell Brook down in Santa Fe, and she does stone setting she's able to lay out these big bracelets now, you can't lay out all those tubes over a curved shape and solder that form. So with the press, she was able to do that , no deformation, no damage . 

Courtney: Let's break down a few of these basic terms.. , let's give you just a little mini lesson from Peter, how would you explain what a die is in simple terms? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: We say die all the time. It means a bunch of different things. it's just a shaped tool that the metal is pushed over or into. It's really any kind of tool that helps us form the metal and

the two main terms is forming and coining forming is when we're taking flat [00:11:00] sheet

We're bending it into

what

can be very complex, three dimensional.

forms.

and techniques that

we get

On the hydraulic press that are forming like silhouette.

dies nonconforming dies where we're using urethane to now push our thin metal sheet into a brass or

a steel die. 

And then even

conforming

dies where we're taking

positive and negative steel dies and squishing our thin sheet into that. Coining is taking this to a whole new order of magnitude you think about a brand new minted coin there's details in there that you can't really see with the naked eye.

We're talking high pressures,

hardened tool steel dies. The

level of detail that we want in our piece

dictates what materials we should be using

And what's your end goal?

What

material do you wanna be working with?

What

kind of weight do you want it to have and what level of detail do you want 

Courtney: how does the pressure of a press allow jewelers to achieve textures and patterns that could be impossible to do by [00:12:00] hand? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: You can sit down and you can hammer metal, you can, shape the head of your hammer and you can get different designs. But there is a point where you're just pushing down into the metal with the hammer, and so you are limited to the exact forms you can get it's also not as precise. But you take that texture of hardened tool steel and now you press your metal into that and suddenly you have the negative of what you can hammer , having

nice, sharp, crisp edges You can't do that with a hammer or with casting, but with coining you can, 'cause you're squeezing that metal down into

Those sharp points. , the first one was this, crystalline granite texture. It took me eight hours to make the first die but I've probably pressed 5,000 pieces on that. I've spent

now

10

years

developing

that

collection 

Courtney: If you're trying to do that by hand, that's so much more time consuming.

This way you can actually start to repeat these elements, lay them out to create a cohesive [00:13:00] line that your customers can collect, come back for they can relate to it. It's cleaner in presentation. 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: I have

clients

that come back

to me every year for

a new granite piece because I

made their wedding rings seven years ago. 

The granite texture in gold, and now it's every anniversary,

they

get a new

granite piece

I can't draw. Thank God I'm a

jeweler and an

artist in that way. because I can't make beautiful things on paper. But I can tweak and refine so for me, I can spend a lot of time on a die and just keep refining it, and then I can use that to stamp out my finished piece. The first pair of these granite earrings I made, in niobium, I made custom punches. Like chasing tools. And I sat there and I think it took me like four hours to make this little tiny pair of earrings for my mom. . The texture wasn't as crisp and sharp and beautiful as I wanted. Then I put that eight, 10 hours into a die and was able to make a similar pair of earrings . From start To finish doing everything [00:14:00] maybe 20 minutes. And they were better

too.

It was actually world's better. Than the original piece I did by hand,

Courtney: I started as a casting technician in the jewelry field, and so this is starting to really click for me thinking about making that really nice first master wax, your prototype.

And getting it super crisp and clean so that every time you remake that piece, your mold is super clean.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: I can take those elements or those pieces and then I can add to it and I can develop it into all these different pieces. 

Courtney: I wanna talk a little bit about the difference between a hobby press and a professional press

we ended up. Bringing you guys down to work with our students. So I'm curious if you can, explain to us what actually makes a press professional grade what should jewelers be thinking about beyond, tonnage when evaluating a press or price.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: I think it's easy to say 20 tons is 20 tons. You can get a 20 ton Harbor Freight press and it [00:15:00] doesn't do the same thing that a 20 ton press does here. So one of the big things is rigidity of the press and ergonomics, and the whole system of tools and how it works. First off, in terms of rigidity, when we sell a 20 ton press, it's tested to 70 tons of force. at 20 tons, 

there's almost. Immeasurable deflection of that frame. A lot of the hobby presses, we're talking inches of deflection at full 20 tons to the Point where

I've heard stories of like presses deflecting far enough. That pieces go shooting outta them.

Anybody can put a 20 ton ram and call it a 20 ton press. But whether the frame and the whole system of tooling can support that effectively. Is a whole different thing.

Now, if I put 20. Tons of force into my die, but my press is flexing a lot, then I'm actually not putting that force down into my piece of silver or gold. advanced 3D modeling of our presses when we work on new designs

[00:16:00] In ergonomics phil was a master goldsmith before he started working with presses. I've spent 15 years making. Thousands of pieces on these presses. And so how the fit and the function, how you can just rotate tools and set up everything for comfort is really critical. We have 65 years of experience as jewelers going into how we do all of this. . But again, after 35 years of that level of refinement it's not the same. This company was born at, the jewelry bench came from frustrations at the jewelry bench, not from the boardroom. And there's a lot of companies out there they're just trying to make more money, and so they miss a lot of those subtleties 

Courtney: I think what makes good equipment, is those companies who actually get in the studio, utilize the equipment, the application of it should match the customer., Not based on assumptions. We're not assuming that this is gonna work for the jeweler. We know because we are jewelers. We're making the equipment at the bench. 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: we have [00:17:00] 35 years of like backward and forward compatibility with all of our tools, if your jack wears out after 20 years and you bought a press from Lee Marshall in 1995, I can send you a new jack and get you all upgraded and like now you have a press that's good for another 20 some years. 

Courtney: When you're picking the manufacturer to work with, these things should be considered in my eyes, it's so difficult now, I think a lot of us are racing to the bottom price and trying to get. A studio set up under a budget, which I totally get. Money is tighter than ever. But we're talking about longevity and a professional quality compared to a hobby quality. And those are two different things.

Disposable tools have their place. I loved the idea of this upgrade tax. What do you mean by upgrade tax?

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Yeah, don't pay the upgrade tax. This turquoise press behind me here is our classic 20 ton press. It's our entry level press and you never have to replace that and you will [00:18:00] always keep using that. You're not gonna grow out of that. You can add electric pump to it. You don't pay more for doing that three years down the road than you would pay now. That press is going to do so much for you. You're not gonna ever be limited by that press. I'm still not limited by that press 15 years into it. 

a lot of limitations in either working volume

or the way they can attach tools . I'm gonna pay a thousand dollars for a press instead of 1298 for a press. Two, three years into it, you're really getting serious. You're making money. You wanna be incorporating different techniques, and all of a sudden

that press doesn't. 

And that's the upgrade tax. Then it's oh, okay, now I have to invest in

A different press that's gonna, do all the things I wanna do.

30 years. Jayne Redmond got her first press in like 1996 or so. 

Courtney: Wow. 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: It's still working.

She's

prolific as a jeweler,

You spread out the cost of that investment on all of the pieces you're gonna make with it. It's not even fractions of a penny at that [00:19:00] point. 

Courtney: I think there's a lot of misunderstanding with what a press is for but I'm realizing the more I talk with you there is so much more to what a press can do than the average person might realize. Give us a quick hardcore list of what's imaginable here.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: there's a lot of people they buy a press 'cause they wanna cut out discs of metal throw a swanstrom disc cutter in there and pop out discs or get blanking guys and, cut out forms. Or silhouette dies. That's a common technique that's taught in schools and colleges around the country.

And there's so much more I wanna make and do with it.

Courtney: Yeah, we're talking about vessels, belt buckles, repeated textures and forms that you wanna repeat in your work or use those elements in different designs, right? Or different, one of a kinds.

This is just a very small piece of what we're talking about here, 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: And one of the things that I like is

Now that I have my brain wrapped around using the press, it makes a lot of other techniques easier and [00:20:00] possible I've been working on hand engraving, stone setting the last two years. Not as much time as I'd like to, but man, absolutely love it. And being able to do that and then form those pieces on the press makes things possible that.

can't be Done other

ways, smooth and even,

The press isn't just, a standalone technique,

either. It incorporates with every technique out there. I

think Guilloche engraving is a really cool.

one that, you can engrave flat, sheets and then form them on the press.

Courtney: What are you most excited about right now? What's the future look like for Bonny Doon? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: Back behind the camera here, I have these whole big boards of all of my ideas and prototypes. New cool tools coming out. But big part of what I'm most excited about is really sharing all of these techniques and these technologies with everybody.

So we've put a lot of time into education and sharing as much as possible. Really being able to , inspire and empower people to make their own dies, we have a new starter [00:21:00] system

up

and running day one you're making

finished pieces on the press.

And it's, the idea you invest in a press, I'm doing

everything I can in terms of education, in

terms of

tooling

to

have that

press start making you finish jewelry and returning

that investment.

in very little time.

Courtney: I think one of the hangups for people sometimes. It's okay, I gotta get the press and now I gotta get the tooling and now I, wait, I forgot this piece. What else do I need to make this function for me in the studio? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: What I try to coach people with, let's start small. Let's get one technique that you can start incorporating into your work right now. And then we're gonna continue to build for years of our lifespans as jewelers

Courtney: . for someone out there who's maybe just starting to think about introducing a hydraulic press what would be your suggestions ? 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: If you're

looking at presses, it's gonna help you repeat processes better. When you wanna go back and remake a piece later down the road, you already have everything in [00:22:00] line, and not trying to , reinvent the wheel every time it's one of the most versatile machines in

a

studio, it pairs so well with everything. else, 

quarter inch thick titanium bracelets I've bent on my press.

. 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: We're 

 Providing the tech support and

the education for

that 

Courtney: so important. I think all of us love tools. There's a little bit of a tool addiction crisis

that's part of what I do is is this a distraction? Is it something you really ready for?

Is it time to introduce it? And so having that education piece and somewhere they can go, that they can trust that it's been tested and you have proof, there's decades of it 

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: There's

centuries of it ancient Greeks used essentially stamps for forming some of their like very amazing elaborate work. And then they'd go in

they'd hand chase it. But

yeah, starting around the

17 hundreds or so, presses started to become a big

part of jewelry

production,

Courtney: way before the diesel truck.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: yeah. Yeah, I know. Before the diesel truck. Exactly.

.

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: In some ways. [00:23:00] It'll help you do things faster, and easier.

and in other ways it'll help you do things that like you couldn't have dreamed about,

and it does take, an investment in time and practice. , That's also what we're

really trying to do is get

you up and running and using that press every day.

I

hear

stories occasionally, people are like, I bought a press and

I'm scared and

It's been sitting in my garage for five years.

That's where we got all these YouTube videos.

It takes a lot of time and work 

making a lot of these tools.

I want you

to buy a.

press and make tons of amazing art from it. So

Courtney: . peter, I can tell how passionate you are about what you do, and thank God for the Peter Gilroy's, thank you for joining us. Anything else you wanna share with everybody today?

riverside_peter_gilroy_raw-video-cfr_the_jeweler's view _0007: I've learned from so many amazing mentors out there. My uncle Phil Poer, Eddie Bell of

Rio Grande. We've worked with lots of incredible companies like Tim,

Sheriff at Swanstrom

Kate Wolf,

Jayne

Redmond. And yeah, you do pay a premium for that. We're all making tools in the US

too. All of these tool makers are making really incredible [00:24:00] stuff. Supporting them goes a long way.

Courtney: absolutely

Direct to the source or direct to their retailer

, is important. And be careful when you're buying . Do your research, read the reviews, make sure the company's reputable. Make sure that there's a return policy, check in on all these things. If you're looking to save a few bucks here and there, it could end up costing you a lot more.

Be conscious of that. And we wanna support each other. And keep these companies thriving thanks for joining us. Thanks, Peter.

Thanks, Courtney . Thanks for being here, and a big thank you to Peter for sharing so openly. There's a lot in here that can really shift how you think about what's possible in your studio. If you're curious about anything we talked about, I'll link to Bonny Doon in the show notes so you can explore it further and see what might actually make sense for your work.

Speaker 4: If you wanna go a little deeper, I share key takeaways and additional teaching from each episode through my email list@courtneygrayarts.com. [00:25:00] Keep going, my friends. This part matters. I'll see you next week.