What Should I do With My Scrap Silver Waste

During the designing and making of silver/sterling silver jewellery a large quantity of silver waste builds up. It can be made of filings, cuttings, failed designs and failed soldering.

The last time I checked I had over 160 grams of what I would call scrap silver. When you consider it is worth around £100/$150 it certainly isn't something to throw away. Deciding the best way to use this scrap depends on what you want to do with it.

Little pieces of wire can be either be balled up or used as is and then soldered onto rings and bangles to create interesting designs with real texture.

Larger pieces could be melted in a crucible to form little nuggets or once in a molten state could be cast to form intricate designs. If I have any castings to make I would never consider using anything except waste silver. It just wouldn't be practical to use new wire or sheet silver this way.

It is possible to cast your waste silver into thick silver wire 3mm or thicker. If you have a set of casting rings and some delft clay all you have to do is fill your casting rings to the top, insert something cylinder in shape straifht down into the delt clay, cut a pouring funnel and pour in your melted scrap waste.

One tip, never ever try and sell your scrap to one of those cash for gold and silver companies as you will only ever be offered less than half price.

How To Cast Sterling Silver Jewellery

Casting metal is one of the oldest known techniques of jewellery making in the world. Perhaps since man discovered fire we have been trying to burn and melt different materials. Making shapes from molten metal naturally progressed from this.

Once we understand casting it is quite an easy technique to repeat over and over again. As long as we follow the same principles we almost never have mishaps. Even if we do make mistakes with our cast silver it doesn't matter anyway as we can just melt it down and try again. The only waste we create is either some burnt delft clay, gas we have used or wax if we are doing the lost wax method.

My preferred method of casting is using delft clay. It is a type of sand with added oil. It allows the sand to be molded, hollowed and re-used. For this type of casting we require something to make indentations in the delft clay. Many people carve wax. Not candle wax but a special jewellers wax. It is a harder substance and easier to make intricate shapes. I prefer to use perspex. It is almost impossible to damage and destroy which means a carving I make now is still in perfect condition 20 years from now.

For the cast we use casting rings. Two aluminium rings that slot together. We pack the base ring with delft clay, push our carved item into it and then place the top ring and pack more delft clay in. Once taken apart we have an imprint of our carved item. Now we just add air vents, a pouring funnel and we are ready to pour in our molten silver.

A quick tidying up of the final cast obect, filing, cutting off the sprue and then a polish and we have a perfect silver copy of our carved item ready to sell.

For a more thorough step by step guide go to my photo journal how to cast sterling silver jewellery

What Steps To Get Jewellery Hallmarked

The first step in getting jewellery hallmarked in the UK is by making sure you have registered at an Assay office. As part of the registration process they will send you a form to complete for your name, address, makers mark information and who is authorized to send jewellery to be hallmarked with your makers mark.

After a few weeks you should receive a pack of information including a book of forms that are completed with each batch of jewellery you want hallmarking. You normally have to have different forms for each type of metal. For instance silver jewellery on one form, gold jewellery on another.

You have to list each item you want hallmarking and its weight. You also have to say if you want UK hallmarks, convention marks (usually for selling in europe) sponsor marks, struck marks or laser marks and whether you want early hall service which usually means that they process your jewellery on he day it arrives at their office or the next day. Early hallmarking costs an extra 50% on top. Without the early hall service you can wait uto 2 weeks to get your jewellery back. Convention marks cost extra as do laser marks.

In my experience with the Sheffield Assay Office I have found them to be so helpful everytime I have a query. If in doubt what to do, you should try calling your assay office.

How To Get a Hallmark

Usually, once a person has had some lessons in silversmithing in the UK, they tend to think about selling some of their creations. While this is okay for small rings, once you are creating heavier objects such as bangles then legally you must get your work hallmarked.

Hallmarking is the first product guarantee that we know of dating back to the 1400's in the UK. Pieces of jewellery, silverware and other precious metal artifacts are sent to Assay Offices for testing the purity of the metal. Only once testing has been carried out will your item be stamped with your makers mark, purity mark, date letter mark and the mark of the assay office that carried out the test.

To get a makers mark you have to apply to the assay office of your choice who will send you a form to fill in. The form will ask for name, address and other things including what you want your makers mark to look like. It can be initials set in a range of designs or perhaps a logo that you have designed. They will also ask what size you want the assay marks to be stamped as. For people making earrings, they usually require a slightly smaller makers mark so that it can successfully be stamped onto the earring hook/pin.  Cost of registering at an assay office is around £75 plus vat and the cost of the makers mark is also about £75 plus vat depending on the size you decide you want.

Who Am I?

Hi, my name is Jonathan Sayles and I am a part time silversmith. It started by a combination of my first child being born and my wife wanting to make him a bead bangle as seems to be common in Far East Asian countries.

Of course I had to explain that in the UK giving anything with tiny beads on it not only poses a choking hazard but would also be frowned upon by society. So we did the next best thing and started selling these bracelets to friends and neighbours. After a while it became evident that bead jewellery is very limiting and it was at then that I decided to go for a silversmithing course.

The next 16 saturdays opened my eyes to the world of silversmithing at the Textile Workshop in Nottingham, England. It was a great experience and being the only guy in a room of wonderful ladies helped to make the time even more enjoyable! During those lessons I was hammering, soldering and generally having fun. It seems a guy is only truly happy when he is whacking something with his tool... I think I had a natural ability to make pretty much anything I could think of. My final project for the course was a very technically challenging necklace that later sold for £180 along with a set of earrings to match made for the sale.

I completed a second course to further enhance my skills and went on my merry way. I currently sell my work on Etsy or through my own website selling sterling silver jewellery that I created myself.