This is how a sterling silver ring is made by hand, step by step, from melting the silver to the finish. Students in the one-day course at Govinda Atelier follow the same steps in the same order.
I.Melt and pour
Sterling silver comes to the bench as grain: small bright pellets of 92.5 per cent silver and 7.5 per cent copper. The copper makes the metal hard enough to wear. Pure silver is too soft to keep its shape on a hand. The grain goes into a ceramic crucible, and the torch heats it past 900 °C until it melts into one bright pool.
Molten silver cools fast, so the pour must be quick and steady: tip the crucible and fill the mould in one movement. When the metal has set, a small rough bar comes out of the mould. This bar is the ingot, and it holds all the metal for your ring.
II.Forge and roll
The ingot is too thick for a ring. First it is hammered along its length on the anvil to start stretching it. Then it goes through the rolling mill again and again. The mill is a hand-cranked press, and each pass makes the bar a fraction of a millimetre thinner. To make wire, the metal then goes through a draw plate, down to the thickness you need.
Hammering and rolling make the metal hard. Every few passes the silver must be annealed: the torch heats it to a dull cherry red, and this makes it soft again. Without annealing, it cracks. Annealing comes back at every stage of silver smithing. With practice, you learn to feel when the metal gets stiff and needs the flame again.
III.Cut and form
Ring size is simple arithmetic: the circumference of the finger plus an allowance for the thickness of the metal. The strip is cut to that length, and its ends are filed flat. Then it is bent around a steel mandrel with a rawhide mallet until the two ends meet. The ends must touch along their whole width, with no light showing through the seam. Solder does not fill gaps. It only joins metal that already fits.
IV.Solder the seam
The join is painted with flux, and a small piece of silver solder is laid across it. Then the whole ring is heated evenly, not only the seam, because solder runs towards the hottest metal. At the right temperature the solder melts and flows into the join. When the join is good, the seam is hard to see after filing, and the ring is one solid piece of metal.
V.Size and true
The ring goes back on the mandrel. A soldered ring is always a little oval, so it is tapped round with the mallet. Then it is stretched or compressed to its final size. A ring that fits goes over the knuckle with a little resistance and stays in place on the finger.
VI.File, sand, finish
Files remove the solder line and clean up the edges. Sandpaper follows, from coarse to fine grits, to prepare the surface. Then you choose the finish: a bright mirror polish, a soft satin brush, a hammered texture, or oxidation. Oxidation darkens the low areas, so the raised parts stand out.
VII.Making one yourself
The one-day course follows all of these steps. Most students have never made jewellery before, and they go home with a silver ring they made from start to finish. The three-day course adds a pendant and stone setting, with stones from the Robin Jewels stock. The seven-day course covers all the silver smithing steps and leaves time for pieces of your own design. Learning silver smithing in Pushkar explains how the courses run.