Silver Jewellery Workshop Day 1

Today is my first lesson at the 'Silver Jewellery' workshop. It is an introductory course for beginners on silversmithing, conducted at the Central Institute of Technology. The instructor started the lesson on health and safety issues and then went onto the tools, machines, functions, etc. The technical information was overwhelming and I was starting to get worried if I could even manage to create a piece.

For today's project, we have to create an Anticlastic Ring. Through the process of creating the ring, we learnt to use the jewellers saw, bench pin, files, make and use sanding stick, anneal the metal with a torch, form and finally polish. I found the most difficult part was sawing the design out of the metal sheet. I broke 6 saw blades in total (I was told it is normal to break the blade) and I didn't do a perfect cut on my piece. Fortunately, the filing bit and little tricks took care of the little imperfections, and by the end of the whole process, I was totally amazed by how the plain piece of metal got transformed into a gold ring! That's instant gratification!

The ring can still be improved in many ways but I am happy with how it turns out, being my very first project. It makes me realise and appreciate the efforts behind creating a piece of metal jewellery.

I enjoyed today's workshop and already looking forward to the next class! :)