Where Design Meets the Bench
Bench Envy
ilah Cibis transformed a former warehouse into a bench-centered studio
By Eileen McClelland
(Originally Published by MJSA April, 2026)
Editor’s Note: ilah Cibis owns iLAH Jewelry, a retail store and studio in Worcester, Massachusetts, where, in 2022, she built a workspace tailored entirely to her custom jewelry design practice. Converting a former warehouse into her creative headquarters, she configured the shop to support every aspect of her business. Her studio time is divided equally between digital design work and hands-on bench tasks—casting cleanup, stone setting, and intricate detailing such as engraving. She also handles repairs, including occasional soldering work. In the retail area, she welcomes clients by appointment to collaborate on custom engagement ring designs.
I got my bench 20 years ago in 2006 when I opened my original store, and it’s been through a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever upgrade it. I really love it. I keep adding things around it. It’s just a classic jewelers’ bench. Even though I do a lot of setting, I raised my bench up on bricks so that the bench top and pin are at eye level. And then for setting, I’ll drop my bench pin or whatever setting apparatus I use. I’ve tried to modify this so that it works for both cleanup and soldering and all different bench work.
1. I just got a PulseGraver because we’re doing a class in a couple weeks with its inventor, Tira Mitchell. That’s a fun new tool that I’ve been playing with. I wanted to get more into engraving, so I started doing some research last summer. I had always used hand engravers, like those for push engraving, and I didn’t have any machine to assist. I started talking with [master jeweler] Chris Ploof, who is a neighbor, and we both decided we wanted to know more about engraving. I ended up buying one. There are two handpieces, so I’ll keep one with gravers in it and the other for stone setting. I like how customizable it is. And I’m excited to get more into engraving because it’s fun and it’s coming back. There was a period of time when it seemed that hand engraving was dying off, and now, especially with Taylor Swift’s engagement ring, there’s a demand.
2. There are a couple different companies making these organizers, and they’re really cool modular systems for wheels and burs and beading tools. In my effort to get organized, I invested in some of those, and they’re very fun. This one is the BURZA customizable organizer system by Nashef Designs. I feel like it keeps things a little cleaner.
3. I love my microscope. Years ago, Ploof chastised me for not having a microscope, and now I am a total convert. It’s the most important tool you could have, even if your eyesight is really good, which mine once was (I feel like it’s deteriorating). If you’re setting a bunch of tiny 9 millimeter stones, it’s impossible to do that really well without a lot of magnification, and it speeds everything up. If you don’t have one and you’re going to invest in one tool, it should absolutely be a microscope.
4. The little pieces of paper that are taped along the top edges of the bench and down the side are fortune cookie notes I’ve kept just for fun. My favorite one is right below my torch, and it was the weirdest fortune I’ve ever received. It just said, “Oh, wow, a secret message from your teeth!” I have no idea what that means, but it was probably the first one I put up. It was too weird not to save. A lot of them are motivational: “Every oak tree started as an acorn.”
5. Although I don’t do a lot of repairs anymore, I still occasionally do some soldering. I have a soldering pad on a swivel so I can move it out of the way. It has a third-hand–like tweezer designed to hold small, complex, or delicate parts for soldering. You can take the soldering pad out, and there’s a container space where you can put in a gel to keep stones cold while you’re sizing a ring. So it’s a combo soldering pad with a little divot to put stuff in. It’s cleaned up the bench a little bit because it’s made my soldering station smaller, which is nice. It’s mounted on a peg that you drill into the bench, and it swivels around so I can move it closer to me when I’m using it and push it farther away or totally remove it if I need the space.
6. I always tell people, I’m not dirty but I’m messy. I have a tendency to let my bench get totally terrible before I clean. But I’ve tried to spread things out a little bit. I have a table that was originally supposed to be converted into a display piece for the store, but I never ended up using it for that. Instead, I use it for my files, pens, pencils, my job box—just as a sort of catchall.
7. All of the drawers on the right-hand side are filled with extra burs, pliers, files, sandpaper, and detritus that is needed for jewelry making.
8. I got this ball vise on Amazon. It’s easy to control and move, and it’s good for engraving and setting. There are versions of it for $800 or $1,000, but I got this for $70 and it’s fantastic. I’m very happy with it, and it’s a really good tool for the price.
9. I got my chair from Stuller, and it’s another fantastic buy. It goes very low and very high so, when I’m using a microscope, I can play around with where I’m sitting very easily. And it’s super comfortable. So again, if you are going to invest the money in something (this one was around $500), it’s absolutely worth it.
10. I bought a bunch of worktables and other stuff from a liquidation auction at a department store. We made this whole weird display piece from the base of one of the worktables and didn’t end up using it for the store. But my dog, Tobin, likes to sit up higher and watch everybody. So it’s become like his little throne, where he observes everyone. He hangs out there watching me.
11. This is an antique salvaged from an old hardware store. It was originally used to sell wagon parts. I bought it because, again, I thought I’d make some sort of display out of it, but it never really worked for anything else. Now it is a great holdall for everything tiny, so I’m not digging around in bins, and everything’s labeled. I bought it from a guy who does a bunch of salvage work. We painstakingly restored it, and now this is what I’m doing with it. I call it the world’s most expensive organizer for rubber wheels.
12. I was able to build each space for the use I wanted. The workshop itself is a big open space, but then we have separate rooms with ventilation to keep fumes out of the shop. This is the wet room, where anything wet and smelly tends to end up. My original store was teeny tiny, and the sink I used was the smallest sink that Home Depot sold, like one you’d get for a quarter-size bathroom. You could barely fit your hands in it to wash your face. So when I built out this space, I said, “I’m getting the biggest sink.” Now I have this ridiculously large sink, and I try to keep all of the tumblers and the ultrasonic and the loud equipment in here. This room has a pretty good door and soundproofing so you can shut the door, and the noise doesn’t bother anyone.