Category Archives: Workshop and Tools

smithing – creation of a pair of gemstone and sterling silver earrings

Lots of people like to know the process behind the creations I produce, and I sometimes forget – just because I know how I do this, doesn’t mean everyone does! These lovely dangly gemstone earrings were a wedding gift from my friend and client Natasha to a dear friend of hers.

Natasha found these sparkly amethyst, Rose de France and aquamarine rose cut cabochons in my gemstone collection.

First I shaped the bezels. A bezel is the part that goes around the stone and holds it in place on the piece. I take a strip of silver, bend it into shape with my half round pliers, and solder the join. Once the bezels have been immersed in pickle (an acid solution) to remove the buildup of borax and the oxidisation, I rinse and dry them and hammer them into shape with a mallet on my ring mandrel.

I solder the bezels onto a silver backing plate. After I pickle, file and emery the bezel settings, I check that the stones all fit nicely into their little housings.

Then it’s time to add some links to join the bezels together. I create the links, line them up and solder them on.

I add the ear wires. As always, I am amazed that something that looks so unappealing will soon become something beautiful!

After some more cleaning up, I mount the earrings in sealing wax to hold them still while I set the stones with my engraving ball and chasing hammer.

After yet more emerying and finishing, the earrings are ready to go off to their new home!

In case you want more, I have written before here, here here and here about my processes. Happy reading!

smithing – creation of a freeform gemstone and sterling silver ring

I always love to see behind the scenes of manufacturing – maybe it all stems from that cool crayon factory clip that used to be on Sesame Street? One of my gorgeous clients, Natasha, asked me to use this charoite in a ring for her mum, and her mum was interested to see the work in progress. I have written before here, here and here about my processes, and I thought you might like to see some more!

It started with this luscious piece of charoite which Natasha spotted in my gemstone collection. Using a strip of silver and my trusty half round pliers, I made a bezel for the stone.

I fitted the stone to a piece of sheet silver.

After sawing out the shape of the backing plate, I prepared to solder.

After soldering, the silver becomes oxidised and it seems far-fetched that this will ever turn into something beautiful!

Some careful measurement, and more bending with my half round pliers, and a ring shank is made.

A quick check that the stone fits properly, then I’m ready to solder the shank to the top.

The shank is lined up on the top, and soldered firmly in place.

Time for lots of filing and emerying to get the silver ready for the stone to be set.

After plenty of time with my engraving ball and chasing hammer, the finished product!

In My Jeweller’s Workshop IV

A day (or two) in the life of a jeweller! First some mandrels and my mallet. (I was creating a set of palm bracelets and I needed to make them uniform, hence the texta markings on the mandrels.)

A sneak peek at a very special birthday present in the making! More on that to come.

Me, setting a stone in a ring using my engraving ball.

The end of a productive session!

smithing – creation of a gemstone and sterling silver pendant

It’s always a joy to see other people’s creative techniques. I have written before here and here about the process of silversmithing, and I thought you might like another little insight into this world.

First, the drusy gemstone (from my never-ending collection!) and a rough design sketch. I’ve already created the bezel (the metal that wraps around the stone) in this picture, bending a straight strip of metal (like the one pictured) around the stone.

The next step is preparing the backing plate. He’s some sawing and filing in action.

After filing, comes emerying.

And laying out the component parts to see how it will look. The balls of silver are made by heating some little pieces of silver until they melt – the molten silver naturally gathers up into a sphere. It’s fun stuff!

I emery the back of the bezel flat, so that the join between the two pieces of metal will be exact and the solder will flow correctly.

Then it’s time for a bit of heat.

I love how from this dirty blackened thing comes an object of beauty!

Into a solution of sulphuric acid to remove all the oxidization etc.

While the piece is pickling, I create the bail (the part from which the pendant will hang), and a little plate stamped with my maker’s mark and ‘925’ to show the piece is made from sterling silver.

Those are soldered onto the piece, then it’s back in the pickle and after that, a rinse off.

After a good clean-up, with lots of emerying down to a fine grade, I mount the piece on a wax dop so that i can set the stone.

My engraving ball comes in super-handy here!

Some time with my chasing hammer, and the stone is set.

And finally, the finished piece!

If you like this pendant, you can see more of it here in my shop.

In My Jeweller’s Workshop III

I know how much I love seeing people’s workspaces, so I’m pleased to show you a few more photos of my own little workshop!

15 May 2015

I see in the photo above this rhodochrosite pendant, these seaglass and cuttlefish cast pendants, and this gorgeous custom moss agate ring. On the left is a box in which I keep all the gemstones that are works in progress – there are some that have been in there for some time, I know. I’ll get to them all eventually, promise.

29 May 2015

Under my bench in this photo is the page I use to bend ring shanks to size when they are not going to be a complete ring, for example when they are going underneath a cabochon setting. I can see some of the pieces from my new extraterrestrial collection, and the work in progress on this divine custom chrysoprase set – one of my favourites, I confess!

30 Jun 2015

There is a sheet of silver over on the right rear, and I see the beginnings of some drusy earrings and this lapis ring – and a few other goodies, too.

30 Jun 2015

And here am I, working away. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy what I do!

14 Aug 2015

A sneak peak at some upcoming treasures for you here – and as always, tea. A nice cup of tea’s what keeps me going sometimes. How about you?

Tool of the Month – Flex Drive

That long hanging thing in the middle of this picture? That’s my flex drive. The first flexible shaft was invented by the famous Scottish engineer James Hall Nasmyth (1808-1890), who is best known for his later development of the steam hammer.

The motor is this part the top, which, through a long spiral shaft, drives the little piece at the end. If you’re thinking ‘dentist’, you’re absolutely right! These are used by dentists, too. They’re like a tiny drill at the end of a long hose.

There are endless variations of bits you can use with your flex drive.

My favourites are a particular diamond burr, kindly given to me by the lovely Bill from my Goldsmithing class (I use it all the time!) and my slotted mandrels (for emery paper – that’s one you see on the flex drive head in the picture above this one). I have so many other very useful attachments for this great device! I use my flex drive on just about every piece I make. Thanks, Mr Nasmyth!

In My Jeweller’s Workshop II

Following on from my previous post in which you’ll find the first batch of workshop shots, and bringing us up to the minute, I’m visiting my workshop space in space and time. You can sometimes catch me posting more of these snaps on my Instagram page and my FaceBook page – I’d love to see you there!

24 Sep 2014

This was obviously a busy time for rings – I see a ruby zoisite, an orange titanium coated drusy, a faceted black onyx, a malachite, a piece of labradorite, a brown drusy and a howlite ring all in the creative stages. And some of my domed pieces, too!

10 Oct 2014

Here, I’ve come along further with some of those previous pieces, and added this rest of the faceted onyx set and green mojave turquoise ring to the mix. That is my pair of nylon jaw flat nose parallel pliers on the right – fabulous for holding components that are too tiny to be held with fingers while I saw or file or emery, without leaving marks on the metal! Also, a little batch of jellyfish earrings in the making on my soldering block.

6 Nov 2014

The storage expansion continues.. and while it has been there for a while, I draw your attention to my tree stump, kindly provided by a neighbour. It is extremely useful as an ‘anvil’ base, and I’m pleased that even though a tree had to be chopped down, I could salvage a piece of it for a good purpose!

9 Nov 2014

Bead obsessed, much?

21 Nov 2014

Amongst that mass of tools, I see this pendant on my bench peg, and I am still working on that crazy creation underneath!

8 Feb 2015

A couple of repair jobs in the front, some pairs of earrings, a shattuckite pendant and this mojave green ring are all works in progress here! It’s so satisfying to have a number of jobs on the go at once – there is a fair amount of downtime while you’re waiting for things to cool and pickle after soldering.

4 Mar 2015

I quite often have things on my bench waiting for inspiration or the right time to strike – some seaglass is in the process here! Also a bunch of forget-me-nots, which I will post more about another time.

1 Apr 2015

Beads for the beginnings of my Ceramic collection are on my bench this day, as well as a number of stones waiting to be set – including this rhodochrosite pendant! The forget-me-nots are all on my soldering block. Stay tuned.

My Jeweller’s Workshop

23 Jul 2012

For a while now, I’ve been taking random pictures of my workspace. Sometimes I post these on my Instagram page, and sometimes on my FaceBook page; but I thought it was time I posted them here for you to see. Look how clean my workspace was only a few months after I first got my jeweller’s bench set up! Look at that nice new engraving ball.

2 Jul 2013

A year later, and I’ve achieved the more lived in look. All clean work in progress mess of course! I spy the beginnings of the Elementals collection.

24 Jan 2014

As time goes on, storage becomes more of an issue, as you can see by the stacks of boxes full of Czech glass.

28 Feb 2014

Here you can see my jump ring winder… and I think those are parts of this bracelet and ring combination piece.

03 May 2014

That’s a wax stick for stone setting you see there amongst the tools and bits and pieces. I was working on this chrysocolla pendant amongst other things here!

15 May 2014

More joy, and more pieces in the works.. including this peacock blue round drusy ring, and this stormy blue oval one. That’s my ring sizing equipment in the top left hand corner.

19 Sep 2014

Besser brick is not very exciting, but I brighten up my space with a fabulous piece painted by a three year old, and I love my beautiful Granny’s landscape oil painting of the cliffs at Fairlight – it is calming and inspirational. And yes, I do drink a lot of tea!

Tool of the Month – Chenier Cutter

A tool that I don’t use very often, but when I need it I’m glad of it, is my chenier cutter.

Chenier is fine hollow tubing, which can used to make various parts such as hinges and bails, or be used decoratively as I have in this ring:

To cut the chenier to the right length, and/or to file the ends of the chenier flat, it’s much easier to clamp it in this cutter.

The cutter has various spaces to cut at both 90 degree and 45 degree angles.

It’s great for cutting wire, too!

Tool of the Month – Tumbler

One of the useful pieces of equipment in my workshop is my tumbler.

It can be hard to get a shiny finish on small pieces and pieces made from wire, so popping them into the tumbler with some steel shot, water and a tiny bit of dish soap does the trick!

The lid is cleverly made to seal completely, and bolted on tightly.

The base of the tumbler rotates the pot around and around, which rubs the shot against whatever you place inside, polishing it beautifully.

The tumbler I have is actually sold as a gemstone tumbler, but works beautifully for silver as well. Not that you can see in this last picture, but twenty minutes sees the finished product looking shiny and great!

the silver forge

jewellery handcrafted by ruthie gray