Friday, August 03, 2012

I'm Back :)

We're back from our Far North Queensland 4 Wheel Drive Adventure. It was full of fabulous sights, scenery and people - but more on that later.

I've waited to blog this as it was a gift for my daughter, but now her Birthday has come and gone I can blog away and not ruin any surprises!

In June, my friend Jane & I enrolled for a two day workshop at Fremantle Arts Centre, one of my favourite learning places. We were fortunate enough to be taught how to make Sterling Silver Spoons by the marvellous George Lucas, a renowned and very well respected Silversmith here in Western Australia.

Here's the results of my class efforts.

 
The spoon was made in 3 parts, the top was sawn from sheet, shaped and hammered. The middle was from thick square wire and the bowl also sawn from sheet and domed to shape.
That was the easy bit - the fitting it all together and soldering was a bit trickier.  A bit of precision sawing was involved in getting that top bit to fit the mid section but we all got it in the end under George's watchful eye.
Fortunately George had a jig he'd made which we used to hold the bowl and the handle together when we came to soldering those parts together.  Jane was clever and soldered her spoon together without the jig - smart move really because if we ever want to replicate it at home we'll all be jigless and have to do that!

I made the little custom gift box because next to making jewellery I love messing around with wrapping and papercraft.
Hopefully, one day the spoon will get handed further down in the family as a little heirloom  - in the meantime,  I was pretty chuffed when my daughter (who'd seen it after day 1's class when it was in 3 pieces and not cleaned up in any way) on receiving the finished spoon said "Mum, you can't see the joins!"  WooHoo!

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