Metalsmithing

This page (and the subpages in the navigation bar on the right) includes goldsmithing, silversmithing, and jewellery-related topics such as stone setting, enamelling and etching.		It is a natural down-sizing from sculpture in many cases, especially for someone who likes gleam and glitter (at least in small doses).
The left-most picture below is of 2mm sterling silver strip, rolled with a purchased leaf skeleton through a rolling mill, then relief gilded. The centre picture is of a sterling silver seahorse I cast from a dried specimen bought some decades ago from a Cornish village. The eyes are two sapphires set in a sterling silver tube which I rivetted right through the head. It was later displayed upright on a silver threaded post. The right-hand picture is a series of copper strips, enamelled after making designs by etching.
The pictures below are of various copper alloy (i.e. coin bronze) 2p coins, each tested with a magnet to make sure they were old enough NOT to have a steel core, then enamelled.  The coin on the left has an embedded piece of copper mesh.  The other two have enamel powder dusted through a mesh onto the coin before removing the mesh very carefully then firing.  The result – sparkling pyramidal bumps of coloured enamel!
The left-most picture is scraps of silicon bronze sheet soldered to similar scraps of sterling silver and then textured in the rolling mill to integrate the design. This has a hint of ‘married metals’ technique. In the centre is my first engraving on a small copper sheet, done on a course at Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media & Design with Wayne Parrot and Alan Craxford.