[Jewelry making - Article 00494] - Re: [Orchid] Born with a silver spoon

[Cynthia Wiig]

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Hello Elaine -

    I don't know if your intention is to forge a spoon, but I was taught
    to forge the long feeding spoon from 4 gauge square sterling wire. 
    It was hard to find 4 gauge wire - but at that time, I was able to
    find some from Hauser and Miller.  I was shown to avoid forging the
    area were the spoon bowl meets the handle - which allows the
    thickness of material needed for strength in that area.  It is many
    rounds of hammering/annealing to form the spoons.  I love watching
    the way the spoon takes form. 

    For the shorter spoon that the toddler uses to feed themselves - I
    would start with 8 gauge sterling sheet and saw out a short skinny -
    slightly spoon shaped blank.  The starting blank size needed to be
    calculated.  The same principal of leaving thickness where the
    strength is needed was applied.  I was shown the sensitivity of
    leaving slight thickness at the edges of the bowl of the spoon and
    the end of the handle as well, for comfort and durability of use. 
    Fine tuning the thickness of the silver also added to the aesthetic
    wholeness of the shape.  It's a very satisfying process to forge a
    spoon. 

    I've tried pouring an ingot to use for forging a spoon - but with
    the porosity in the ingot (because of my inexperience) - it made that
    way undesirable.  Taking the time to saw the blank from the clean
    sheet metal was worth it!  I still would like to work on my ingot
    pouring skills - it's a great way to use scrap silver. 

    Once when making a large serving spoon for a wedding gift, I used
    the information from the Rupert Finegold and William Seitz book
    "Silversmithing" - to calculate the starting size of the spoon
    blank.  It was fascinating how accurate the size worked out - to not
    waste any silver. This book was a great resource for any smithing
    projects that I pursued. 

    Anyhow, that was my basic experience and approach to making spoons. 

Have fun and Aloha,
Cynthia

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