Small-Scale Silversmithing, Paperback

This practical book introduces the craft with a guide to the workshop and its tools, then emphasizes the importance of drawing and design before explaining key techniques and showing how they can be used in clearly illustrated projects. By keeping the individual pieces small, it explains a range of skills that can be developed and combined to make more adventurous items. It discusses transforming silver sheets or rods into three-dimensional shapes using sinking, raising, and forging techniques. It teaches how to silver solder and attach handles to the rounded body of a bowl and create well-fitting seams. Nine projects illustrate the techniques in use and include making spoons, round boxes, hinged lids, drinker beakers, and candlesticks.

F. J. Whitelaw has been a practicing silversmith for more than 25 years. She combines traditional silversmithing techniques with contemporary design to create exquisite collections of domestic silver, which may be ornamental or functional.