Silver Tea Strainer

With the book "Silver Smithing" by Rubert Finegold as an instructory text, the art of delivering measured planishing and raising hammer blows to move metal in different ways was undertaken. This first ever attempt at silver smithing began with a trial cup made of copper, and ended with a semi-finished silver tea strainer two days later. The hole pattern in the strainer bowl was to drilled at a later date. The process began from raw silver that was cast into an ingot, rolled, annealed, shaped and annealed many many times, sized, soldered to two handles, and then finished with multiple polishings.

Materials: sterling silver, silver solder.
Tools: assorted planishing and raising hammers, ball pein hammer, raw hide mallet, chaser's hammer, various silver smithing steel forms, oak log, oxy-propane torch, rolling mill, ingot mold, ultra sonic cleaner, buffer, jewellers hand files, fret saw, snips.
Year: 2006