The amateur silversmith

How to melt silver

To melt silver itself, you use a very powerful flame over a brazing hearth. Once it’s molten, you can cast it into water, sand or carved cuttlefish, which creates unique, organic shapes.

When you’re making pieces of jewellery – and definitely don’t want the silver to melt – what helps the solder to flow is flux, a chemical compound that reduces the surface tension of the silver and prevents firestain (oxidation). Because the solder has a melting point below silver, it bonds a join before the silver itself starts to melt.

Becoming a silversmith

The first time I heard a tutor say that annealed silver would still be as pliable a year later as when first heated, I realised how little I knew about silver itself.

It has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity and the highest reflectivity of any metal.

I learned that working with silver, for example by hammering it, changes its structure – a process called ‘work hardening’. To restore the atoms to their regular pattern, you must anneal the silver again. Then the annealed and unworked silver holds its innate pliability until you next work it.

This has helped me to understand why what I’m trying to do either works – or doesn’t. The whole process is one of unseen movement. Silver is an amazingly forgiving and pliable metal. Even its sound changes as you work it – it ‘talks to you’.

I love the effect from a delicate Korean technique called keum-boo, where gold foil is applied to the surface of silver. The process of heating the silver and then applying pressure to the gold with a burnisher – the foil I use is 23.5 carat and around 2.5 microns – means the electrons fuse, which is called a diffusion weld.

This tension between the seeming permanence of a finished piece and its impermanence – heat it again and the silver could fully absorb the gold, or the solder could melt again, or the silver could crack – I find very important somehow. Silver has hidden depths and is more durable than any of us who will ever wear or use it.

Hallmarks, history and Hatton Garden

Another aspect of silver I find deeply satisfying is the community of makers. I registered for my ‘maker’s mark’ late last year and became part of a tradition of hallmarking at the London Assay Office that dates back to around 1300. I read recently that well over 300 women registered their own mark or became apprentices to silversmiths between the late 17th and mid-19th centuries.

There are four assay offices in the UK – London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh – each with its own unique hallmark. The symbols in a hallmark show (from left to right) the maker’s mark (also known as a sponsor’s mark), the type of metal, its fineness, the assay office and date. Any gold or silver above a certain weight legally has to have a hallmark if you intend to sell it.

Last year I did a one-day forging course in Hatton Garden in the workshop of a master craftsman, Steve Wager. In addition to his immense skills, he shared his encyclopedic knowledge of an area that is synonymous with London’s jewellery business.

Most jewellery sold in the UK is now mass-produced elsewhere and a centuries-old industry based on multiple professions – stone setters and cutters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers, enamellers, polishers and many more – is vanishing. The modern apprenticeship system may help the industry to revive and thrive.

Silversmith history and future

Silversmithing and jewellery-making techniques and tools have an ancient tradition in many cultures and an extraordinary continuity. Foldforming, invented in the 1980s by Charles Lewton-Brain, is the first innovation in working metal for thousands of years.

Now CAD (computer-aided design) and 3-D printing are opening up immense creative possibilities for objects and jewellery made from multiple materials. And, like many other areas of life, this is generating heated discussion about the role of technology and what it means for people’s skills.

At home, I work on my jeweller’s bench and kitchen hob. I bought an old tool cupboard and various tools on eBay and from Cooksongold. Like every silversmith, I feel possessive love about my hammers, files and other tools.

The aesthetic I’m drawn to is northern – mainly Scandinavian. I almost always texture silver, using different hammers or a steel rolling mill to imprint designs. Like countless others, I experiment with how silver can be shaped, twisted and turned. I like building up the heft of a piece using layers of silver. And I like trying to incorporate personal mementoes – scraps of personal letters or clothes with sentimental value.

On the silver courses I’ve done I’ve had some brilliant tutors, including Clara Breen, Rae Duncan, Felix Denby and Silvia Weidenbach. Currently, I’m being taught by Tracy Furlong and Martin Hopton, and Tania Schwartz.

Making pieces from silver is when I experience that elusive and slightly addictive ‘flow’. I want to continue to experience this, to learn more about silver’s history and chemistry, and to try to express myself creatively. Does anyone want to take on a 50-something apprentice?

Enjoy this article connecting science and art? If you're in London, you might also like our exhibition Somewhere in Between, at Wellcome Collection until 27 August 2018.