Comments on: Whiptips - recycling spoons

By: abigail

abigail — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 20:39:08 +0000

Check out the hallmarks on the spoon before you start to determine it’s material - a mark like ‘EPNS’ will indicate electro-plated nickel silver….in which case, you would probably need to have the sppon re-plated after forming it. If the hallmarks indicate it is solid silver {’925′ - in the UK anyway..} you are in luck!! :)

Hope the project goes well!!

By: CraftyGinger

CraftyGinger — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:53:01 +0000

yikes! Didn’t think about plating… Most of my experience is straight up sterling. Anybody know how to test for plating?

By: katrin

katrin — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:31:38 +0000

ginger´s right about the technique, but make sure that the spoon is made from the same material inside & outside.
often old silver cutlery is made from two metals… a “hard” metal for the inside that then is covered with silver, so more people could afford a “real silver” cutlery.
hammering might make the upper layer crackle or even split off, so be very careful with that.

By: CraftyGinger

CraftyGinger — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:16:07 +0000

First off, is it a small spoon? Because it seems (to me,) that a regular sized one might be too large for a ring…? Either way, a bracelet or ring shape would be made in mostly the same way.

To start, clean the spoon as much as possible. If you don’t have polish, sometimes a tiny dab of toothpaste can work well. Next, you’ll need a very hard surface (preferable an anvil, or something else you could hit with a hammer and not destroy.) If you don’t mind the marks a steel hammer will make, you could use a regular old one layng around, or (my preference,) a rawhide mallet, which won’t mark the surface of the spoon. Hammer to flatten out the spoon, and then you’ll need a round ring mandrel or rounded anvil to make the ring or bracelet (respectively,) round.

All it take to raise the 3d shape is more hammering, patience and observation. The more tiny taps, the better, if you really jack it out of shape you could potentially damage the inside structure of the metal, so you want to go slow. Good luck, I hope this helps! (When you make it, I’d love to see it finished!)

The longer spoon handle could be wrapped around several times to form a serpentine ring, or you could also cut the excess off, depending on your preference.

By: June

June — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:15:51 +0000

No idea about making a spoon into a ring, but there’s a great tutorial on how to make a coin ring here: http://homepage.mac.com/johnhuber/CoinRing/PhotoAlbum20.html

By: iHanna

iHanna — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:34:30 +0000

Maybe this will help some:

http://warehouse.carlh.com/article_099/

found via

http://www.diyhappy.com/spoon-bracelet/

for more inspiration:

http://www.silverwork.com/page3.htm
and
http://www.silverspoonbracelets.com/

Good luck!