Mum's the Word
- Isabel White
- Mar 23
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Custom Heart Pendant
A commission between siblings.
Regular customer and super sound guy, Jim from Brighton had the idea for this commission.
After losing their Mum, Jim felt his sister needed a memento of her. Something tactile to hold and beautiful to wear.
We started things off with sketches for Jim to look at. He let me know his favourite and I developed the details on it. He gave me the go ahead and I got to carving the heart in wax.
Designing and Wax Carving
In order to get the design onto the wax, I use tracing paper and a needle.
It's imperative you prepare and smooth your wax sheet first. Even then, the outline you get from this method is ghost like. You must remove the tracing paper and redraw the design using the pin by connecting the dots. It is fiddly. But do this right and your design will be there to guide you and keep things in place.
Wax Carving Process video>>>>>
Now with Mother's Day (UK) fast approaching, I had a tight deadline to aim for.
Luckily AA Fine Castings in Highbury & Islington cast the heart within a week of me handing them the wax.
Silver Cast Assembly and Polishing
Now I had the silver casting, I needed to add the hoop and jump ring in the workshop.
I then cleaned up the casting by sanding it with finer grades each time, until it was perfectly smooth. This prepared the back of the pendant to receive a personalised engraving.
Katie at The Great Frog East lazered the message for me. Expertly done, thank you TGF.
The next task was to leave the pendant at the London assay office to get its Hallmark.
And finally, once collected, it was oxidised and polished to a mirror shine.
See all this below in Process video Part 2>>>>>>
The question is, did I manage the deadline and was Jim's sister Alex happy with the pendant? Yes and yes. By the skin of my teeth. And she was over the moon.
Thanks for looking
Get in touch for custom work HERE
Or check out a list of previous commission HERE
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