Silver Smithing
And Similar Skills
My Silver Smithing Story
I have always liked making things slowly my interest developed into using copper wire do this. Then it came time to start to choose my subjects and decide what path I wanted to take in life. After browsing many different creative universities I found a 3D design course at Robert Gordon's University. This course covers ceramics, glass, and silversmithing, this really peaked my interest as I had dabbled a little bit into each of these areas. I started looking into silversmithing and realised I would need a few new tools which would open my horizons. I did lots of research into what would be the best equipment to get. Once I decided what to get I use my Christmas money to get all the tools are required to get started. This is what allowed me to explore into silversmithing but I soon found the true silversmithing can be very expensive especially as I am not selling anything. I found that I could use the tools I have to play around with other things which don't use silver so are less expensive but still fun to do and they still look really effective
Overview
My Corations And There Story
necklaces
Once I got all of the tools I wanted to use them as soon as I could. I picked out a few things that I could put the bezel wire onto and had a play about. It was all going really well until I tried to put a jump ring on but with no success. I found that I was overheating the stone which cracked and also overheating the pottering which caused the glazed to burn away. I realized that it was very expensive to be making these mistakes I stopped using the silver and wanted to practice on some other type of metal until I have the skills to use the silver agene.
The process of making these is very simple, I cut the buzzer wire to the circumference of the item then soldered it in place. Next, I used the burnisher tool to bend the metal around the shape this is the cheapest way of creating this effect. The proper way would be to have a silver base plate that you solder to but it is eye-wateringly expensive to do that so I went for the cheaper option.
2 Penny Bracelet
This started off as a practice for soldering on jump rings. But then I realized that it looked pretty cool so I kept ongoing. I used my doming block to make the pennies concave giving them more character. the color that was made when being heated up is amazing so I decide to keep it there. The issue with using the design as a bracelet is the pennies are too wide so consequently, you get one penny on top of your wrist than one on each side, which to me isn't the best design. That makes this more of proof of concept that if I find the right coin that is smaller I can recreate it using the same method. But then In saying that I could also take this idea and make something completely different with it
Suncatcher
After realizing how expensive the bezel wire was I want to try something different and after some time on Pinterest, I discovered that you can solder over copper tape. By doing this you can and encapsulate a piece of glass or pottery. from here you can join the peace together and Bild up shapes. One of the pieces of glass on the sun reflector was my first go at this technique. I then realized I could do more of them and create the design I have here.
The problem with this is there is a lot of leftover yellow flux on the exterior of the peace. I have tried to get it off by washing them but with no success. I also tried sandpaper which did work but it took a lot of time and required to get into some tight spots which weren't always possible. Instead, I found that you can just gently scratch it off with a knife but it wasn't perfect.
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This is another thing I made from this technique and I was just mucking about with building up different shapes this this this is actually where my idea to make a suncatcher came from.
Silver Flower
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I wanted to make my partner something for her birthday and after much thought, I decided to make something related to us.
To create the flower shape I carved a piece of wax, removing as much material as I could so that the pendant wouldn't be too heavy. Once I was happy with the wax carvings shape. I used the wax carving to make a mold for sand casting the Sterling silver. Once cast I cleaned it up by filing away material and then cut the holes for the gems and diamonds.
I wanted to put all my effort into making this piece so I decided I would make the chain as well, I won't describe the process here. But what I will say is I had some problems and had to start again with the chain. It Was entirely my fault as I wanted to try something out but it didn't work.
I decided to start from scratch so drew the wire for jump rings myself. The Cuban chain doesn't sit 100% flat but when worn looks all right. I was happy as this was my first whole silver necklace.
I used this wallet for several years. It was brilliant as it was so easy to carry around with me. The downside to using it was with prolonged use I was slowly damaging my cards. This was because every time I pulled out a card it would rub up against another card and slowly wore them down.
Brooch
This piece was made as a present for somebody and therefore the theme is tailored to them to make. To start I cut out the cross symbol in the coin then filled it with copper and soldered it in place. I then sweat soldered on the threepenny bits to the back of the shilling, a very simple process but holds its meaning.
Glass Pendant
This piece was made for a Christmas cracker so it's a small little gift. It is a piece of sea glass with silver bezel wire around the glass holding it in place. I used a rotary drill to remove the glass material to cut out a heart shape. I found it easier to solder the jump ring before burnishing the silver around the glass otherwise the glass cracks from the heat of soldering.
