Dinnerware to Eveningwear

Welcome!

My mother and I were talking, not long ago, about some antique spoons she had, and wouldn’t it be great if we could do something artistic with them; give them life again.

Well…one thing led to another, and I took the odd ones that didn’t match the set home and started to experiment. Rings have to be sized to each person, but a pendant – that is for everyone.

Below, you’ll find instructions and photos to help guide you if you want to try the project out for yourself!

(Note: Click on any thumbnail for a larger version of the image)

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Based on the pattern in the spoon’s handle, how much you want showing in the finished work, how long a pendant you want, and how much loop around you want, you cut off the unwanted portion of the spoon. The loop around may be small for stringing or a chain, or you may want it larger to go on a slide.

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Take a small torch and heat up the end of the spoon to soften the metal. Once hot, you’re going to hammer the “loop end” flatter so that it isn’t so bulky against your neck and for a basic finish.
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Hammer away! The smoother your hammer and the smoother the surface you are hammering on, the less scratches you’ll wind up with. This translates into less work for you in total, as the less scratches you create now, the less buffing them out later. (Notice, I am hammering on a brick and with an old beat up hammer).
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Once you’ve done all the damage you can do with the hammer, your next step will be to do like me, grab a file and start filing out some of the deep scratches you just made. Art is messy. I love it!
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I tend to put things on the buffer as I go. This just helps me to see where the really deep scratches are, so I know where to focus.
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And the hammering made rough weird shapes on the end. You want to smooth all that out, and reshape the end to a nice round, or something fancier if you want. For this example, I stuck with a simple round end.
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The piece has cooled off, so we are going to re-heat it to get it soft again so we can fold the end over to make our loop for our chain to run through.
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I lack a lot of equipment. You are going to want to start your turn by hammering your piece around something. I put a screwdriver in a vice and started hammering around that. Once the turn is started, you and flip the piece and start forcing it back around. I am using a mallet here, to try and cut down on scratches and dents. You will also notice I am holding the piece with a kitchen towel, as to not burn my fingers.
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My one nice piece of equipment is a pickle pot. It is basically a crock pot. (In college we used crock pots.) You put a special chemical (sodium bisulphate) in the water, mix it up, and let it get hot. This eats away at the oxidizing that happened while you were heating the metal. The directions tell you amounts and times and things (figure 9 shows the piece sitting in the Pickle Pot).
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The scratches look light, so I am going to start on the buffer, see what there is to see.
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I am using an item to help polish, you can put it straight on the buffer wheel while it is turning. The soft pads won’t hurt your fingers, though it will get your piece hot after a time – friction.
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So, I have been buffing a while and there are two places too deep for the buffer to go. So, I have to do a little hand work.
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It can get a little dicey here. You need the file to get to this deep scratch, but you don’t want to make more deep scratches. And you don’t want to hit the intricate pattern in the spoon. Be light handed, and careful.
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After I have done all I dare with the file, I move to sand paper. To get something smooth, you have to gradually get scratches out. That means to something of smaller grit each time. Again, you are having to be careful with this tiny piece of sandpaper.
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Once I think I am buffer ready I start over with the same polishing substance as before. Check the piece, looks good, so I then use an even finer polishing substance. This one I found easier to put it on the piece directly, rather than on the buffer. The amount of time you spend buffing stuff out is up to you. How shiny do you want it, in the end? But don’t be fooled. Something like 80% of jewelry work is sanding and buffing scratches. Not glamorous, but that’s the truth of it!
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And here we are, finished pendant made from a spoon. Done in under an hour.
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Now you have an elegant sterling silver piece, that you can put on a chain, a choker, or string up with beads to make something truly unique.

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Tagged with: Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials

Filed under: Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials

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