I just embarked on a year-long Diploma in Fine Jewelry with Jewellers Academy. Each week there is a new skill and project to work on. At the end of each term, I submit the pieces and send them in for marking.
I’m not going to lie, as much as I love love love making jewelry, this is going to take a lot of concentration, time, energy and (I’m sure) curse words! I’m looking forward to the challenge and I love learning, so we’ll see how it goes!
I'm going to attempt to share with you all each of the weeks projects.
Week 1: Reticulation and Keum Boo
We had to make one ring and one other project (could be earrings, pendant etc), I chose to make two rings.
I enjoyed the process, the reticulation didn’t have as much texture to it as I hoped and I had to reapply the keum boo a second time. But it was great to learn new jewelry skills again! Investing in one’s self (I believe) is really important. I have some reticulated silver left over, so I’ll make something else. I also bought a hot plate to do the keum boo with, which is coming in handy as our kitchen is getting renovated!
Reticulation
Reticulation is a decorative surface finishing technique involving the application of localized heat to the surface of a metal object. Reticulation is typically performed on alloys of silver and copper or of gold and copper.
Keum boo
Keum-boo is an ancient Korean gilding technique used to apply thin sheets of gold to silver, to make silver-gilt. Traditionally, this technique is accomplished by first depleting a surface of sterling silver to bring up a thin layer of fine silver.