[Jewelry making - Article 00308] - Re: [Orchid] A one question interview

[Ian W. Wright]

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    Hi Elaine, I have never really been employed in jewellery making but
    I have made quite a bit over the years. Apart from one or two bits of
    tumblestone jewellery and a few trinkets for my mum I really only
    started in earnest when I began courting my present wife back in the
    late sixties. At that time I was a struggling apprentice surveyor
    earning 4UKP a week - 2 of which went to my mother for board and
    lodgings, so I had virtually no spare cash with which to shower my
    girl with gifts! Anyway, the day came when we decided we wanted to
    get engaged and there was no way I could afford to buy a ring.
    However, at work, a friend's mother had just died and he offered me a
    couple of old gold wedding rings that she had had, for a very nominal
    sum. He also gave me an old broach which still had a reasonable
    sapphire in it (most of the stones had fallen out). So, I designed a
    ring which was fairly modern for the time - a couple of parallel bars
    with the sapphire offset from centre between them, and made a mock up
    out of two bits of copper sheet sawn to shape and held at the right
    angle to each other with soft solder. I used this to make a
    cuttlefish bone mould (sorry budgie..) and melted the two rings
    together in the remains of an earthenware cup in the domestic Baxi
    fire. I had to use the vacuum cleaner on blow under the grate to get
    enough heat and the grate vurtually all burnt away in the process
    which puzzled my father greatly and got the coal merchant a telling
    off for supplying us with the 'wrong coal'! Anyway, I got a workable
    raw ring which I could finish by filing. The setting I made from
    silver and I then registered a makers mark with the Sheffield Assay
    Office so I could get the ring properly hallmarked. All in all it
    looked very good and still survives 35+ years later although I did
    once have to replace a broken claw. 

    The next project was a 21st birthday gift for her and this took the
    form of a bangle with a watch in it. The kind of two-part, hinged
    bangle which is now made from wide oval tube was just becoming
    popular and so this was the basic idea. However, I couldn't buy
    ready-made tube at about 1/14" wide so I fabricated it from two
    sheets of silver with square wire between for the edges. The silver
    sheets had to be beaten to a dome shape in two directions to make the
    right shape. This was my first experience of hingemaking and I not
    only hinged the two halves of the bangle together with a 'hidden
    hinge, but also made a hinged compartment in the back for the watch
    movement whose dial was just below the face of the bangle. The
    'glass' was made from a piece of smoky quartz (Cairngorm) which I
    flattened and polished down to a 1mm thick sheet and then mounted in
    a silver bezel. (I persuaded the local university geology dept.
    technician to help me with this stone cutting as I had never done any
    before). There have been a number of other similar projects which I
    have just careered headlong into - learning as I went along and they
    have all turned out well. My motto is - You can do anything you want
    in life until you PROVE otherwise! 

Best wishes,
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield, UK

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