As the longest established silversmiths in Cork we design and manufacture gold, platinum and silver jewellery. We also manufacture a range of silverware in our workshop in Rutland St. (Map).
We’ve just finished this piece which was commissioned by a local scouts club as a presentation. For anyone who has been in the scouts you’ll recognise it’s a silver model of a woggle that you use to tie your scarf. It looks simply enough to plait some silver wire but the challenge was to get the silver to behave like the leather that is used in the original.
It took alot of annealing to get the silver wire malleable enough to plait, so what looks like three easy steps in these photos actually was spread out over a few days work!
As Christmas is fast approaching we’ve been getting lots of commissions for silver tableware. Here are some pictures of a silver butter dish which Jimmy made.
The base of this dish has been made using a technique called spinning which is done on a lathe. This involves cutting a disk of silver and using a wooden chuck (which is the desired shape of the finished object) to shape the silver disk similiar to the way a wood turner works. The lid of the dish has been raised by hand which involves hammering the flat sheet of silver into its domed shape using stakes.( Click here to see what a stake looks like!)
Here are some photos of us working on silver medals which are to be presented to the Grand Slam team.
These silver medals are being presented by the Cork City Council and the Cork County Council on 13th May 2009. The medals are all cut by hand including the logos which are cut out by hand and then soldered on to the medal.
When the piece has been soldered and cleaned in acid they are then hand polished using a lathe.
They are then hand engraved on both sides to represent the County Council and the City Council.
The finished solid silver piece measures 50mm in diametre and is 2mm thick.
This piece is modelled on a Tootsie Roll ( really good sweets only available in America ..unfortunately!) The pendant is made up of a solid bar of silver which we brought down in size to match the diametre of the actual sweet. By pulling the bar through a draw plate you can slowly reduce the size or change the shape. We made two claw style settings to replicate the twist of the wrapper which we then set with cubic zirconias. This picture shows the piece when it had been soldered together before the setting, engraving and polishing.
unfinished soldered piece
In a fully equipped workshop like ours it is possible to make anything you want. Mostly customers come to us with ideas and we work with them on finalising the overall design. So it’s always interesting when you get an unusual request like this!
We recently received a commission for a silver sculpture with a nautical theme. We wanted to make something quite contemporary but using the more traditional silverrmithing techniques and finishes. The piece which is 20″ in height and 12″ in length is made from one single sheet of silver (except for the base) to minimise the number of soldering joints. The more times the silver is heated and soldered the more the metal will warp.
The curves of the piece are formed by gently annealing the silver which involves heating it to a particular temperature and then hand raising the metal over different shaped stakes. This labour intensive process is one of the of the most traditional silversmithing techniques. The piece is then finished by planishing the metal which involves hammering the surface with highly polished hammers. This process refines the surface after raising. We have also used planishing to give the piece a hammer marked finish which can be seen in the picture above.
The piece is also stamped with an Irish hallmark from the Assay office in Dublin. We send all our work there to have the metal tested and hallmarked. Ireland is one of eighteen countries in the world that has an authorised Assay office.
I’m putting up a picture of my bench if you can look past the mess it shows some of the tools we use! The yellow dockets are used for each job that comes in to the workshop.
The V shaped board on the front, called a peg, is used to support the piece you are working on.
Pig skin below the bench is used to collect the scrap and filings of metal that can then be remelted.
Piercing frame (on the right) used for cutting using very fine blades.
Mallet (right) which is made from rolled raw hide is used to shape metal without marking it.
Ring stick (far right) used to check ring sizes.
Solder (left) this little plastic syringe holds the solder which is in paste as it is mixed with a flux. Solder can be boughtt in wire and panel form also.
Draw plate (left) this plate has different size holes which we use to pull wire through to bring it down in size.
Digital callipers (left) used to give exact measurements like thickness of metal.
Draw tongs (far left) used to pull wire through draw plates.
Finally taking this blogging seriously and getting our first post out there. We are manufacturing silversmiths and jewellers. What we are hoping to do with this blog is to give you a glimpse of some of the interesting commissions we get and how we do them.
There are three of us in the workshop: Chris Carroll, Jimmy Callanan and me, Eileen Moylan - All Silversmiths.
Please let us know what you want to see on here: info@corksilver.com
This is corksilver.com, the online presence for Sean Carroll & Sons Jewellers, of Rutland street, Cork (the workshop) and The East Village, Douglas, Cork (The shop) and Cork being in Ireland.
We are Corks longest surviving silversmiths.
On this Blog we’ll be letting you get to know us and what we do.
