Often our favourite assignments are the jewellery handmade and remodelling jobs, and this is because the design possibilities are endless.
We can take a piece of jewellery and remodel it to better fit your aesthetics or day-to-day environment, or we can melt it down and start from scratch.
Often old-fashioned jewellery is no longer appreciated by a younger audience but remains sentimental and so ends up being kept but unworn. We love transforming these items into something modern that is worn again.
Many people do not realise that this is a possibility, but we are here to inform our customers about every step of the process.
We listen to our customers’ requirements, i.e., whether the jewellery is for daily wear, what stones are sentimental, the lifestyle of the recipient etc before sketching some preliminary designs. Whether or not something is intended for daily wear can drastically change the design of the piece for the sake of its durability.
After listening to the requirements, we design a selection of pieces for our customer to choose from. We make amendments to these until we come up with the perfect design, and then we move onto the next stage.
We remove all stones from any old jewellery we intend to melt down, and seal them safely away in a bag for a later stage.
The jewellery is then melted down and poured into a bar from which we can then fashion the metal into a new creation.
We use a myriad of techniques for forming metal into something wearable, the most common ones being milling, piercing, hand-forming, soldering, filing, buffing, and polishing. It is an art that requires constant concentration and a very precise knowledge of the craft and industry in order to produce a high-end product that is also long-lasting.
Customers may choose to have stones set into their piece. There is an array of setting techniques to consider, but we always talk our customers through their options, and make suggestions based on their needs. This will all be discussed during the initial consultation, though changes can be made later.
If any additional services are required, now is the time! Engraving, Enamelling, and Plating are just 3 examples of what the jewellery trade has to offer.
Before we can hand out any handmade jewellery to our customers, it will be sent out to be hallmarked. A hallmark can tell you a lot about a piece of jewellery; The year it was made, the maker, The location it was hallmarked, the quality of the metal, and it is a legal requirement in the UK before making a sale. However, this does not necessarily apply to customers who wish to use their own metal in their design. Hallmarking is still available if customers wish for the Good as Gold maker’s mark along with the option of the Institute of Professional Goldsmiths hallmark to be included.
Please click here to find out about Institute of Professional Goldsmiths
This is a simple break-down of the process used in making jewellery, but each piece is unique and may not follow this exact structure.