Silversmithing

The second course I took in Chiang Mai was a silver jewelry making course. In the one day course you can choose to make either a pendant or a ring. The design can either be your own, or the instructor has a number of samples you can choose from. I decided to make a delicate ring with an attached concave hammered disk. I had a little familiarity with the techniques, as we discussed many of them in grad school, but I had never really gone through the motions. I started out with silver wire:


Annealed it to make it malleable, turned it into a circle, and soldered the ends together (with a little creme brulee torch):


Hammered out the kinks and polished it:


Cut out the disk from a sheet of silver metal (the instructor had me use something quite thick, which resulted in a different effect than I had in mind--not quite as delicate, and it didn't pick up the hammering texture as well as I suspect a thinner piece of silver would):


Hammered the disk to make it concave and give it texture:


Polished everything up, soldered the two pieces together, et voila:


My very first ring! I'm fairly happy with it, especially considering it was my first attempt. I would definitely like to take more silver courses, perhaps at Lillstreet in Chicago, if I ever make it back!