Mokume-gane is the Japanese process of fusing silver and copper without completely melting them. I've done a couple of rings before but I was really curiuos if it was possible for me to make something a lot bigger. Turns out it is possible - just.

I took 4 pieces of copper and 5 of silver and alternated them in a small stack and clamped it all together and heated it to the point where the silver just starts to go liquid. I then took this billet and hammered it into a bar and twisted that. At this point the bar started to crack and tear so I didn't get more than one and a half turns in before I had to stop. I hammered the twisted bar flat-ish and rolled it into a sheet. After that I made it into the body of this little pill box. The lid is decorated with threads of copper fused and hammered into it.

All and all this was a pain to work with and took way too much effort. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Unfortunately, I don’t have step-by-step or well-organized photos or videos, but I do have a few!

This whole journey started with a YouTube video showing someone making this exact chain in gold. That inspired me to start searching for jewelry tools and watching tutorials. Eventually, I stumbled upon a complete workshop left behind by a deceased jeweler. I’ve been restoring the tools bit by bit until I was finally able to make this chain. Among the tools, I found some silver wire, lots of gemstones, and a bit of solder, but everything was completely mixed up and chaotic, so I’ve had to rely heavily on my intuition.

Here is a bit about the process:

Preparing the wire: I started by pouring an ingot and drawing it out through a drawplate to make the wire smaller. During this step, I learned the hard way that silver can crack and fray if you try to fold it back on itself instead of melting it into a proper single bar, so I had to restart.

Making the links: Once I had the right wire, I coiled it around a mandrel and cut the coils into individual links. Then I aligned the ends of each link so they would solder uniformly.

Soldering: Using the torch, I had to solder just enough without melting the whole link. About half of my links broke or developed weak spots during this stage, so I had to discard them, melt them down, and start all over. It was super labor-intensive!

Weaving & Shaping: Once the links were ready, I soldered two of them in a cross pattern to start the chain and began weaving the rest. After finishing the weave, I passed the chain through drawplates to stretch and round it out, constantly annealing it to a cherry-red color and quenching it in water (I had already struggled with metal fatigue early on with the rolling mill, so I made sure not to skip this).

Finishing: Finally, I sanded it, polished it with red and white compound, and washed it with dish soap and hot water. As for the clasps, I made them completely by intuition, using the few scraps of solder I managed to salvage from the workshop.

And here we are—just at the beginning of my journey, with so much left to learn and many more challenges ahead. Thanks for listening to my story!

I’m new to silversmithing, but I wanted to share a piece that I’m proud of. I made it for myself. If this is not the right place to post, my apologies.

I recently started a new job “teaching” silversmithing (fake it til you make it I guess) for a big dorky company. It’s a totally numbers driven business model, but one of the perks is that I have access to a bunch of silver and machines.

Forgive me if I’m not using the right verbiage.

I started with this kinda double bar thing, and split it. Then soldered on a “half round” kinda bar thing with medium solder for the chin bit. Then soldered on the balls with easy. And spent a good hour or so adjusting and readjusting to fit my face shape. I used a lapidary thing with water to grind down the big bits, then hit it with a dremel and polishing machine. It’s not something I would wear for a long time, but it’ll absolutely slay at the club.

For my next piece, I’m working on a nose cuff. Stay tuned.

If I wanted to try my hand at some barrel beads like the ones in the picture. What gauge of silver do you recommend? I dont want them to be heavy and I would like for them to be affordable if someone wanted to buy them.

Hi everyone! I wanted to share my latest piece: a handcrafted silver filigree butterfly brooch with a hanging pearl detail. 🦋✨

It took me about 8 hours of meticulous work to shape, weave, and solder the fine silver wires for the wings to get that delicate, lace-like pattern.

This technique is based on traditional Silver Filigree , an intangible cultural heritage craft with a history of over 1,700 years. Every single wire inside the butterfly's wings is placed by hand using tweezers before being fused together.

I styled it on a light blue top to give it an airy, floating effect. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! ❤️

Oregon sunstone and Orange sapphire. I like it alot.

I got this old machine from 1991, probably has not been used for 15/20 years. I want to trouble shoot and see if I can salvage it. I see the drain valve but I don’t see how to add new oil. Any advice is grateful appreciated thank you in advance

I just got in some cast tube settings from Rio, but it’s not clear to me which side I’m supposed to drill out for the setting. The one with the wide band close to the end (screen left in photo)?

I’ve not used these before - I thought they’d be a little easier than making 16 identical ones from tube and I tripped at the first hurdle 🤪

Hello All,

I am based in Dubai. and have been learning silversmith and jewellery making since a year putting almost 1000 hours and finally reached to wax and stone setting level. I wanted to see if silversmithing can be done on a massive level such as if I can teach around 10 people at once?

I have some ideas but I wanted to check if any one of you has attempted to teach 10 people within 30 to 45 minutes easier pieces ?

Quarter for size reference!

I have 12, 14, & 8 gauge round wire. Any fun ideas for my next project?? I want to incorporate more than one!

I got a sweet fossil at the local rock and gem show (7$ !?) and made a high-speed necklace.

It’s pretty manky, but for some reason for this necklace it doesn’t bother me. Maybe I’ll polish it some other time. The ring at the top is a ring I was experimenting with out of some wire I attempted to roll square, unsuccessfully. I just leaned the bezel on it and liked how it looked.

I’m super surprised it isn’t rolling and clicking / the back of the fossil is like a canoe bottom - nothing flat at all ! I thought for sure it would fall out, especially because I thought I cut the bezel too short at the top.

When its hanging it turns into a pretty ornament, it gives it a mysterious vibe, I love it.

Thank you for the incredible response yesterday, I did not expect that many answers!

I’m finished with the filing on my second practice ring, I’m not going to polish it for now as I’m moving on to a half eternity band.

Over all I’m quite happy with how straight the faces turned out, the placement however is not there yet. I’d probably need to do another 2 or so practice rings to get it where I’d like to be.

I’ll probably come back to this later but my teacher wants me to move on for now.

I’ve added the drawings I did when trying understand where the marked lines would go. I hope its somewhat understandable

hi, i tried to set 4mm garnet in my signet, i made the seat with 4mm setting burr and i think it has the right depth, but the gemstone is not sitting tight inside, kinda like the hole is too big. please help 🫩

I need to get a better mask for my bench time I hate my current one and I don’t feel it’s doing the best job. Recommendations for something relatively affordable and comfortable? I know masks aren’t inherently comfortable

This is my second attempt so far at filing a 40 faced/faceted ring. It’s still a work in progress but I’m struggling to keep the faces straight?

Any advice?

I’ve been restoring a set of antique Sterling silver spoons and I’ve had a hard time getting rid of the very fine hairlines that come up during the last step of high polish. These very fine lines are parallel to the direction of the buff and I can’t get rid of them. Here’s a breakdown of my polishing procedure:

1. Sand away deeper scratches on the spoons with sandpaper pads using the cross-cross method anywhere from 400-1000 grit (depending on depth of the scratches) up to 3500 grit.

2. Pre-polish using a small hard felt buff on flex shaft with Tripoli compound, then polish with Tripoli using yellow cotton buff attached to rotary wheel

3. Apply white diamond compound with small felt buff on flex shaft, polish with white diamond using stitched white cotton buff

4. High polish by applying red rouge compound with small felt buff on flex shaft, apply finest polish with red rouge using swansdown buff. Use a clean swansdown buff to remove excess compound

(Spoons are cleaned with industrial degreaser before applying finer polishing compounds)

-These fine hairlines always show up when applying red rouge. Some ideas I have are that I’m using the wrong pads / buffs at the wrong stages or that the polishing compounds themselves need to be upgraded. I’m kind of stuck on what I might be doing wrong here, any advice would be appreciated.

Made this for my girlfriend. She just wanted a plain gold cap on it but i thought that was to boring xD so she got one with a bezel set gem aswell. swipe for process pics

https://youtube.com/@c.atelierjewelry?si=-ZXFNTHGSLm4sGcTFor the full video, please click my YouTube link (the moderator has approved me posting the link).

Sterling smile