How your jewellery is made

After sketching (not very well!) an initial design, I'll often make a prototype in copper to see how the design works in 3D - once happy with it I'll then move on to making the first piece in silver.

All pieces start with either a sheet of silver or a piece of wire. The fun part is then working with that to create the final product - it might look a little chaotic but here's a snapshot of a part of my workbench.

The finish is so important - for the final stages I'll use several grades of abrasive discs to achieve a smooth finish which provides the base for a number of different grades of polishing compound that I use to give that final deep shine.