Level 1 - Beginners
Intensive 3 Week Silver Jewellery Course
Saturday afternoons
Intensive 3 Week Silver Jewellery Course
Saturday afternoons
Class level: Beginners
Introductory level class, suitable for those with no previous experience at all. This is an extremely comprehensive metalsmithing course, which once completed, will allow you to go ahead and start making your own silver and gold jewellery. Please note - This course is not project based. The focus is on teaching and introducing you to as many tools and techniques or processes as possible. Although we do try to finish a piece of jewellery in every lesson, this is not the objective. The aim of this course is to teach you the absolute fundamentals of jewellery making - so by the end of the course, you will have covered all the basic skills and techniques of a traditional silver or goldsmith; allowing you to then go on and create your own jewellery to suit your unique style. You will learn all the basic techniques - like how to cut your metal, different types of soldering techniques, how to texture your metal using tools, punches rolling mills and hammers. You will also learn how to bezel set a stone and how to file and polish your work to give a lovely professional finish to your jewellery. By the end of the course, you will be able to make chunky chains, bangles, pendants, brooches, earrings and rings - including spinners, stacking and stone set rings. |
3 Week Intensive Course
Saturday Afternoons
3 Week Beginners Silver Jewellery Course
Afternoons: Saturday
Dates: 20th, 27th July and the 3rd August.
Time: 12.00 - 5:00 pm
Price: £ 240.00
Age: 16+ For students under 18, you will need your parents consent to attend these classes.
Tutor: Tracy Hills
What to expect in this course: During the first session we will discuss health and safety in the workshop and have a guided tour of the workshop.
Using copper or brass you will learn the basic skills - such as piercing, annealing, soldering, texturing, filing and polishing - needed to make jewellery. Once you feel confident with your skills, you will receive some sterling silver sheet to enable you to make your chosen design in silver using techniques learned during the course. You should be able to finish at least one piece of silver jewellery that you can take home and wear with pride, or give as a gift.
The small unisex class which is held in our Liverpool workshop, is also a great environment to develop your creativity and do something fun with like-minded people. It also offers the opportunity to make lovely original gifts, and might even be the start of a new career.
Each student bench has a complete set of hand tools, a soldering station, a pendant drill and an overhead light with magnifier.
For students under 18, you will need a parent's consent to attend these classes.
Using copper or brass you will learn the basic skills - such as piercing, annealing, soldering, texturing, filing and polishing - needed to make jewellery. Once you feel confident with your skills, you will receive some sterling silver sheet to enable you to make your chosen design in silver using techniques learned during the course. You should be able to finish at least one piece of silver jewellery that you can take home and wear with pride, or give as a gift.
The small unisex class which is held in our Liverpool workshop, is also a great environment to develop your creativity and do something fun with like-minded people. It also offers the opportunity to make lovely original gifts, and might even be the start of a new career.
Each student bench has a complete set of hand tools, a soldering station, a pendant drill and an overhead light with magnifier.
For students under 18, you will need a parent's consent to attend these classes.
Week 1
During the first session you will receive an introduction to the workshop, followed by a discussion on health and safety in the workplace. You will then be introduced to the jeweller's saw and how to fit the saw blades. This will be followed by the correct way to pierce (cut out) your metal by hand. Once you're confident with the saw, we'll move on to the exciting part. Soldering! You will be shown how to operate the two hand torches provided on each student bench. You will learn all about the different types of fluxes, solder, and the soldering tools needed. Your first project will be rings. We will start with a wide band - which could be worn on its own, or be the base for a spinner ring. After this we will make a couple of thin rings, which can either be worn as stacking rings, or can be used for spinners to be fitted over the band you made earlier. During the session you will also be introduced to the hydraulic press, where using dies, you can create lovely wavy shaped rings. You will go home with either a set of stacking rings, or a spinner ring. Week 2 We will stick with soldering techniques, as this is one of the fundamental aspects of jewellery making - You will be shown how to solder layers of metal together, by using the sweat soldering technique, before moving on to soldering posts onto stud earrings. We will also go through sanding, and polishing. A love or hate technique - but an absolute necessity, if you want to create a professional finished piece of work, you will need to know how to file and polish correctly. You will be shown how to go through the different grades of emery paper, and how to make buff sticks. We will follow that up with filing and polishing by hand, to bring your metal to either a high shine, or a satinised finish. These are all necessary techniques to finish your jewellery to a high standard. Week 3 Stone Setting. For our final class, you will be introduced to stone setting tools and shown how to create a bezel setting for a cabochon gemstone. You can then decide whether you want to set it into a ring or make a pendant. You will be given sterling silver for this project. As with all new techniques learnt, you will need to practice, practice practice!! But once you've mastered the above techniques, you will be able to make jewellery on your own with a minimum of hand tools. If you'd like to learn more, then you can continue with our level 2 courses, where you will be shown many more exciting techniques, such as - reticulation, granulation, tube setting and fold forming and creating hollow shapes using the hydraulic press. Our small unisex class which is held in our Liverpool workshop, is a great environment to develop your creativity and do something fun with like-minded people. It also offers the opportunity to make lovely original gifts, or may even be the start of a new career. Each student bench has its own complete set of hand tools which comprise a set of various pliers - including parallel pliers, files - both needle and flat, dividers, a ring clamp, ring mandrel, rawhide hammer and more. Each bench also has its own a complete soldering station with turntable, two hand held torches and various tweezers and a third hand. They also each have a quick release Foredom pendant drill and an overhead light with magnifier. The workshop also has a larger tool section - such as a rolling mill, hydraulic press, pillar drill and bench grinder and polisher. Although each bench has its own soldering station, we also have a large dedicated solder station. This has two large Sievert gas torches, as well as a Smiths Little torch for all our casting workshops or for those large pieces of jewellery which need more heat than a hand held torch can deliver. For students under 18, you will need a parent's consent to attend these classes. We can only accommodate 5 students per class. Therefore early booking is essential. |
Some techniques covered in the course:
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Hand Tools used:
Everything that you will need for this course - An allocation of brass, copper and sterling silver and all consumables (flux, solder, saw blades, Emery paper) included in the cost of this course. Each bench has its own complete set of hand tools, soldering station, pendant drill and overhead light. A selection of tools and materials are available to purchase from me on the day |
What to Bring:
This is a workshop environment, so your well being and safety is important to us. To ensure this is a safe - but fun environment for you to learn in; we ask that you please:
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More information or queries:
Terms and conditions: https://www.metalandflame.co.uk/tcs.html
Frequently asked questions: www.metalandflame.co.uk/faq.html
Coronavirus Safety Procedures: www.metalandflame.co.uk/coronavirus-rules-and-procedures.html
Contact: https://www.metalandflame.co.uk/contact
Email: [email protected] - Please note, if you email me, please include a phone number, as some of my replies land in spam folders
Terms and conditions: https://www.metalandflame.co.uk/tcs.html
Frequently asked questions: www.metalandflame.co.uk/faq.html
Coronavirus Safety Procedures: www.metalandflame.co.uk/coronavirus-rules-and-procedures.html
Contact: https://www.metalandflame.co.uk/contact
Email: [email protected] - Please note, if you email me, please include a phone number, as some of my replies land in spam folders