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Gorham Silver Napkin Holder Replica

So Dan had a customer come in who wanted a replica made of a Gorham silver napkin holder. Gorham is a silver manufacturing company that was started back in 1831, damn, they were competition for Tiffany back in the day. I’d never made a napkin holder but I love traditional silver smithing work and I knew I could do the design because it was pretty simple. Check it out.

So the original napkin holder had a P engraved on the front. The customer wanted one with an R in the same style.
I started out by creating the shape out of a piece of wire so I would know how long to make my stock.
I flattened out the wire and knew how long to make my piece of silver.
Measure twice cut once.
There ya go.
I measure the inside diameter of the original piece.
Then folded my stock on that same diameter.
Get it?
This is a little trick my professor Richard Prillaman taught me, the silver will warp and buckle as it is heated up to soldering temperature so I tied steel wire around the piece to keep the piece from moving. I know, pretty smart:)
I used the rose bud torch to solder the piece because it was larger.
This is what the piece looked like after solder, all that color is from the flux, it’s kinda like an enameling.
After it was soldered I used different stakes(shaped steel anvils) to get the form just right.
Pretty damn close.
I filed the edges and then sanded the piece on a flat surface to make the edges flush.
Now that the piece was done it was time to put the R on there.
Now I dabble in engraving but is no way I would be able to do this kind of traditional job. I took the piece to a wonderful hand engraver in down town Boston named Beth, check out her site, she’s the real deal.

I polished the old piece up to so they would match, the napkin holder came out great.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 17th, 2010 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Gorham Silver Napkin Holder Replica”

 
  1. Alejandro Sifuentes says:
    April 18, 2010 at 2:17 am

    JASON,
    You are Getting Medieval on Me,
    Gorham Silver Company- Did you do A Time Capsule Thing -Are What?
    Love It Man!!! It Does Remind me of X-Mas And The SPOON You Made .
    That Was A Fun Christmas
    This Dude Worked In My Studio.
    GooD Work HomBre.
    Alejandro

  2. Jason says:
    May 6, 2010 at 10:53 am

    I worked for your studio. You know you’re the man. I miss working there. Thanks for checking out my site. When are you coming up to Rhode Island. I’ll come see you.

  3. Marjorie Fleck Withers says:
    May 30, 2010 at 9:31 am

    Wonderful job. I was impressed & touched to see my mothers napkin ring recreated and once again next to my fathers. You are talented. Thank you.

  4. Jason says:
    June 1, 2010 at 9:22 am

    Thank you very much Majorie! I was more than happy to help and I’m always up for a good challenge. It was really great to be able to work with and recreate an original piece of Gorham silverware. I usually only get to read about those pieces. Thanks again for the kind words and I’ll be sure to send you a link to a new post I have coming where I restore a damaged
    handbell. Please drop me a line if you have any future projects or pieces you would like me to take a look at.

    Have a great day,
    Jason Lieder.

 

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