Silver

During my college days I was very fortunate to be introduced to a Silversmithing evening class at the legendary Sydney Place College of Further Education. 

Not only was the course located in one of the exquisite Georgian houses in the centre of Bath … but Sydney Place transformed my life as an artist forever.

It was here that I met silversmith Dave Tucker, a most inventive and original artist in his own right … but also a man with a very fresh and welcome attitude to education. 

Dave’s tuition was superb … but short-lived, as he soon introduced me to John Huggins and his bronze casting foundry in the basement of that glorious house, but in the meantime Dave gave me some invaluable pointers … both for silver … and for life! 

His approach was to simplify the processes … thereby making them accessible. Beat, join and finish. It sounded easy … and he made it seems so.

Once you begin to work with a new material in a simple way … you can create what is uniquely yours … and if you wish you can then go on to introduce the more complicated processes and techniques.

My interpretation of Dave’s advice … ‘the Mexicans create wonderful things sitting cross-legged on the sand’ … has proved invaluable, both as way of thinking, and as encouragement to confront all materials with a liberating and positive approach.

And certainly, I enjoy using silver whenever I feel it is appropriate to the idea or the piece that I want to create. 

The sample here, ‘SHE BAT’, hangs from silver wires with paper thin wings … apparently bats only hang ‘the right way up’ when feeding their young from their pouch.

Whenever teaching or encouraging other people to make things, I have tried to implement Dave Tucker’s mantra … and sometimes there are excellent results!

This Sterling Silver Brooch was made by Michael Maxwell, during a workshop I ran at the Muse. It is not only an excellent piece in silver, especially for a first piece, but it was very technically challenging because of the gold wire soldered around the edge, as well as the making and fixing of the tiny gold rivets!

I think Michael’s wife was thrilled!

Below is a ‘gallop’ through the main techniques I use in the studio:

CUTTING: It’s possible to cut thin silver with kitchen scissors … or even a junior hacksaw! 

However, to avoid bending or distorting the metal, generally you would use a fine toothed saw known as a PIERCING saw. 

This means the cut can be quite precise and no silver need be wasted. 

PIERCING describes how a filigree design is cut into silver. The design is usually scribed on the silver and a hole is drilled to admit the fine piercing blade, the saw is re-assembled, and then used to cut out the shape.

There is always be a good deal of filing and finishing to do, even with the most careful piercing work. In this piece there was a lot of chasing both in picking out the letters and in the Celtic weave.

Seen here: a Silver Brooch I made with the letters D, M and P in a Celtic weave design, combining Repoussé, Chasing and soldering (of the pin on the back!).

JOINING: The melting temperature of silver is between 890ºC and 960º C. It is possible to WELD silver with a household/camping torch (where you melt both pieces of silver together until they become one).  

However, generally it is most common to SOLDER silver, ‘hot-glueing’ pieces of silver together.

MAKING MALLEABLE:  This is known as ANNEALING:

Because silver becomes hardened by hammering, bending, spinning or stamping, it’s important to ‘relax’ the molecules. 

This can be done by simply heating the silver until it goes a dull red and then allowing it to cool, it then becomes soft and workable again. Once it has been annealed, the ‘fire stain’ must be cleaned off in ‘pickle’, usually a warmed proprietary chemical mix.

BEATING: You can move the silver into almost any shape by bending or hammering the silver. This can be done from one or both sides, with hammers chosen for the shape of their heads, or by chasing tools or punches. 

In my untutored world … this falls into three categories: RAISING, REPOUSSÉ, and CHASING:

RAISING: Traditionally a vessel is raised by hammering silver sheet over an anvil. However, it is possible to achieve a similar (although less sophisticated) effect by beating the silver into a sandbag with a lead-worker’s mallet! 

This is the method I favour as I don’t have the experience or skills of a bench trained silversmith, it means the shape can be created without loss of silver … the metal is just moved into a different position. Ideally this leaves the silver a consistent thickness.

This bowl was made by painter Frankie Cummins, as her first silver piece.

REPOUSSÉ is primarily a 3-dimensional relief process. (Chasing seems very similar, and the two techniques are often used together. See CHASING below.)

Repoussé (‘re-pushing’), is used to create a relief or embossed pattern or shape with hammers and punches, where you work from both front and back of the silver, using wooden or metal punches and chasing tools.

Image 11 shows someone using a chasing hammer and punch to work silver in a (bitumen) pitch block. This image is from ‘The Theory and Practice of Goldsmithing’ by Prof Dr Erhard Brepohl to be found at:
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/repousse.htm
where further info about this skill can also be found.

Image 12 shows a detail of traditional Repoussé work, as seen on an antique silver box lid.

As with Raising, I favour wooden tools for Repoussé, to ensure the consistency of metal thickness. Also I prefer to work the metal into a sandbag wherever possible, but sometimes it’s necessary to use a Pitch Block (see image above) for smaller or more detailed work.

Repoussé skills (also known a embossing) date from antiquity and have been used widely with gold and silver, copper, tin, and bronze for centuries. famous classical pieces using this technique are the bronze Greek armour plates from the 3rd century BC.

Seen here is a silver spoon pierced and beaten (Repoussé) in the form of a leaf motif. There is a small amount of ‘lining’ done with chasing tools.

PITCH is made to specific individual recipes (tar, wax, plaster etc) so that its softness/hardness suits the job …the weather … and the silversmith. 

My favourite recipe is fairly soft and contains an abundance of Bees wax … which smells nice too!

A Pitch Block can be an invaluable friend when Chasing the silver as well as for repoussé, especially for holding small or awkwardly shaped pieces.

CHASING - basically a term for working the surface of metal, using numerous metal punches with a (Chasing) hammer. It’s usually done from only one side, unlike Repoussé.

Chasing is used for many purposes: 

• it can be employed alongside repoussé, to refine the design on the front of silverwork;
• Chasing can be used to move the metal, to make it thinner, or even thicken the silver;  
• Chasing is also used to ‘finish’ silver castings, refining the metal in the same way as for bronze castings.

CASTING of silver is almost identical in process to that of casting bronze (please see the Bronze Technques page) … the differences that we have experienced at the Muse are in temperature and necessity to exclude oxygen when pouring the metal. 

BOWLED OVER was designed for a man who after 25 years of marriage was even more in love with his wife, and wanted something memorable to mark the date.

The commissioner and artist put their heads together and came up with the idea of a vessel made of the couple’s hand prints.

The piece was created in wax, and became the first silver casting done at the Muse … all 3 kilos of silver! We had help from a wonderful and experienced caster, Tim Blades, who ensured that process went smoothly and successfully!

The piece was chased as if bronze, symbolic (silver) olives were soldered onto the base as feet for the bowl. The whole thing was pickled for hours, then patinated. This substantial silver vessel shimmered with an ethereal haze. The client and his wife were both happy!

SILVER PLATING is also known as ‘Electro-plating’, whereby metal (silver) is deposited onto another metal (in this case bronze) by passing an electric current through the object whilst immersed in a chemical solution.

Seen here: MOON MASK, part of a set of four, each silver-plated as different phases of the Moon’s cycle, combining CASTING and SILVER PLATING. It describes the lakes and land masses that we see from earth, to create an anthropomorphic or imagined face of ‘the man in the moon’. The Full Moon Mask is completely SILVER PLATED (image 01); with both the Waning and Waxing Moons’ coronas ‘drawn’ in silver.

HALLMARKING is a system of marks impressed on silver or gold items by an Assay Office with the purpose of establishing its purity. 

In Britain, the hallmark consists of the assay mark (e.g. the lion passant for sterling silver) and other symbols denoting the place of assay, date, and maker. With its comprehensive records, the system helps the public to identify items and guard against forgeries. It is the world's most stringent silver quality control.

I have my own makers mark, a simple SC as seen here.