Diary Of A Silversmith

This week saw another challenge overcome.

Some weeks ago a customer who had come to JA Campbell to have a large silver salver engraved with a golf trophy ensignia also requested a plinth to go with it. Trying to be as helpful as possible and in the knowledge we had just taken delivery of some Honduras Mahogany I said - yes.

I submitted a drawing which included a silver plate for engraving the winner’s names and the customer approved the quotation and concept.

As the delivery date approached I began to wish I had said no, for cabinet making skills  are required to make the piece and this is not my main forte. If nothing else, sanding timber of this size, would take ages and cover everything in our workshop with a good layer of mahogany dust and take ages to clean up.

So I cheated and put in a search on Google for ‘cabinet maker Brentwood’. Not only did I find a competent person, but also a superb craftsman who completely re-drew my original sketch, improving it substantially and also made the plinth up to a standard I could not have achieved.

Next I made the engraving plate, fitted it and sent it to our engraver. Another superb craftsman (if that is the right term) for this man is also an artist and probably the best hand engraver in the UK today.

If a job given to JA Campbell involves a skill we do not process in-house we certainly know someone that does. For example diamond mounters, chasers and modellers to name just a few.

To be wholly responsible for or even partly responsible for creating a piece of modern day silver gives the greatest of satisfaction. While ever that feeling lasts I will continue to be a Silversmith and carry on the traditions of generations of craftsmen before me.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith

An interesting job came in a couple of weeks ago (I like interesting jobs) It was a damaged silver communion chalice from a prison chapel. It was originally made in sterling silver by Vanpoulles Ltd in South London circa 1965 - 1970. Busy, involved in another job at the time, I had a brief look and quoted £150, thinking it would probably take a couple of hours to repair. The quote was approved and when I came to start the repair I realised it had some quite bad creases/folds in the trumpet shaped base. Once metal has been folded (like a sheet of paper) it is difficult to rectify. However, I like a challenge and I always stick to a quote.

The story behind the damage, which was rather extreme, was that it had been stamped on by an individual, flattening both the bowl and the base, it didn’t seem accidental. I had thought that maybe it had been shut in a heavy door or something similar, not just knocked or dropped.

Rising to the challenge, the work commenced. Using various stock tools to gradually open up the flattened parts, followed by making a wooden spinning chuck to fit inside the base and another inside the bowl, I re-spun these 2 components and the creases came out very nicely. Following a re-polish the chalice was like new again. Result - a very satisfied customer. It always gives me a good feeling when a job turns out well, even if the economics are not great. The overall job had taken 5 hours, rather than the 2 hours I originally guesstimated!

Silversmithing to me, is as much a hobby as it is a business.  At 68 years of age, I am as interested today, as when I started my apprenticeship at the age of 15, probably even more so.

It is worth noting that no matter how badly damaged you think a piece maybe, always ask the question of the Silversmith. But make sure you ask a reputable and competent one, as with all industries, cowboys exist! Some people call themselves silversmiths when they are actually the village plumber.

JA Campbell Silversmiths -reliable, reputable and competent.

During a recent dining refurbishment at home, a pair of our silver candlesticks had been put away in a wall cupboard to protect them from dust and grit. The need arose to go in that cupboard for a glass at the weekend (as you do!) and one of the candlesticks was moved, falling approximately 1.5 metres onto the tiled ceramic floor!!!!!!!!!!!!! “Oh, no” I exclaimed fearing the worst.

Thankfully it was totally undamaged.

How many candlesticks made today would pass this “accidental” test. Silverware made as good as it can be, rather than how cheap it can be. At JA Campbell Silversmith’s we pride ourselves on the quality of everything we produce. Not only that, we provide a full repair service if something did actually happen to a piece of our silver. More often than not the damage is to the crystal components. However we can replace the silver on to a new crystal body.

Have a look at www.jacampbell.co.uk and I am sure you will appreciate the design features of all our products. Now you have a little bit of background to the quality as well.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith 

It’s marmalade time again folks! For those who have not done this before, but ‘quite like’ marmalade this short once in a year occasion must not be missed.

Seville oranges (essential ingredients) are in most good greengrocers, fruiterers, markets and supermarkets now! But will be gone in a couple of weeks, so hurry.

The first time you make marmalade it will probably take you the best part of 2 to 3 hours for a batch of 12 jars (10 to 15 minutes per jar). This includes assembling and preparing ingredients, washing, drying and warming the jars prior to loading with the amber nectar.

There are a handful of tasks in life one really must do for ones self, no matter how busy you think you are. Making  marmalade and Christmas puddings are just 2 of them. Some years ago, when the run up to Christmas was especially hectic in the workshop, our crystal supplier had delivered a batch of claret jug bodies very late - 2 weeks before Christmas. This meant long late hours and no time for the domestic essentials, consequently I bought the marmalade and puddings from a well known London retailer, which sports a string of Royal warrants in the belief this would suffice.

How wrong can one be, I shall never make that mistake again, I shall always make the time to produce these 2 items at least.

A batch of jam jars, a measuring jug and a jam funnel (available in good cook shops for a couple of pounds), can make for mess free loading.  A large heavy bottomed saucepan is also essential as the mixture dramatically rises in the pan as it boils rapidly.

The aroma, especially, while it is bubbling away is something else. The flavour, colour and consistency when it is in jars and cooled down are likewise.

If you are like me, you may have a problem pinpointing the setting point resulting in sometimes a slightly runny and sometimes a slightly stiff result. Personally, I quite like the variety. If you get it badly wrong however and it is really runny simply empty the jars back in the saucepan and boil for a bit longer. Conversely if too thick, again, empty the jars back in the saucepan, remelt slowly and then add a little boiling water.

Recipe

1.5kg Seville Oranges

3.5lt Water

2 Lemons

3kg Preserving Sugar

Method

Wash the fruit, cut in half and with a squeezer remove juice, pips and pith. Empty the juice into the pan and tie the remainder, pips etc into a piece of muslin.

Quarter the fruit skins and slice as thinly as possible and add to the pan.

Empty the water into the pan and bring to the boil, simmer for one to one and half hours until the peel is very soft. Remove the muslin bag, allow to cool slightly, then carefully squeeze as much juice as possible back into the pan. This contains the natural pectin from the pips which will help to set the marmalade.

Add the preserving sugar and stir over a low heat until dissolved. Bring to the boil, then boil rapidly until the setting point is reached. This can vary considerably but will probably be 20 to 35 minutes. Place a little hot marmalade onto a cold saucer and allow to cool. If it forms a skin and this wrinkles when pushed with a finger the setting point has been reached.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly then skim the surface and stir. Using the measuring jug, pour into jars previously warmed in the oven (without the lids) and then put the lids on, label and date.

Remember the best way to serve your marmalade is in a silver lidded preserve jar from JA Campbell Silversmiths.

Enjoy!!!!!!

John Campbell

Silversmith and amateur chef

Having made around 5000 silver salt & pepper mills throughout my career, in a variety of different shapes, I consider myself something of an authority on this subject. What one has to take into account though is that while I might be an authority on making silver mills I am obviously not as proficient with using and maintaining them on a day to day basis. I do however use one at least once a day everyday.

I discovered a few days ago, on topping up a mill with fresh peppercorns, that a mill kept full, or nearly full, produces far more ground pepper than a lesser full one. (A nearly empty mill grinds painfully slowly - even a JA Campbell mill fitted with a Peugeot mechanism.)

 The simple reason for this is that the weight of the corns pressing down on the grinding mechanism is much greater when the mill is full ,or nearly full, forcing more corns through per turn.

As with all spices there is no comparison between freshly ground and ready ground.

For information, even though we do not make a coffee grinder, the same applies to grinding coffee beans and you will find it easier in the beginning than at the end, but it is worth it for the fresh aroma of newly ground coffee beans.

In a recent silverware blog I gave information regarding how to clean silver salt & pepper mills and I highly recommend you read this to ensure you do not accidentally cause damage to the mill bodies or the mechanisms in the mills.

Whenever you use JA Campbell Silver remember to enjoy it, use it, do not keep it shut away in a cupboard, it improves with use and will give your friends and family pleasure as well as yourself.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith at JA Campbell

Having made many hundreds of salt mills during my career, had a few back for repair, considered writing some good maintenance information but backed off due to the possible complexity of the subject.

Today I found myself, a user, with a clogged up salt mill that was not functioning due to the salt crystals becoming damp at some stage. Having cured the problem relatively easily I now feel able to write the following simple maintenance procedure.

1) Remove salt mill knob and cap and empty salt crystals into the rubbish bin (do not be tempted to reuse)

2) In a glass measuring jug fill to the 1pt level and heat to 60 degrees centigrade. Immerse  mill body, cap and knob fully for a few minutes until remaining salt crystals have dissolved. Holding the grinder spindle and dunking up and down will speed up this process.

3) Remove mill parts from the jug and discard the liquid

4) Repeat 2 and 3

5) Repeat 2 and 3

6) Drain and dry thoroughly inside and out using kitchen paper (cap drains better upside down) and place overnight, upside down on a warm surface covered again with kitchen paper. A central heating boiler or radiator will be adequate. Any hotter will burn or melt the perspex base.

7) Re assemble and polish using Silvo or similar product. Refill with fresh salt crystals.

Important!!!! There must not be and never be any water present in any parts of the mill as this will immediately create a problem and serious damage.

Enjoy the experience of using silver for good food and dining, as we do, everyday.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith

The fallout from the Lehman Brothers debacal has put many people, including me, around the globe into austerity mode. Where can we make savings ? Utility bills, restaurant visits, motoring measures, the list is endless. Once you have achieved these savings you get to like the experience and carry on regardless. Do I really need that new shirt or new car? Indeed I have cut down my tea bag consumption by 50% It is so petty because I am not exactly poor, but I am enjoying the new game of making savings.

When this game has gone full circle it will be time to start spending again, but this time on luxuries, things for the home, things of value, things for the family and for handing down to future generations. Items of intrinsic value that are mobile and which the dreaded taxman won’t get his greedy grubby fingers on. Something which will not attract a thief. What fits this description? SILVERWARE

A set of wonderful silver underplates to stand your beautiful china plates on when entertaining your friends and family. Just imagine when surrounded by good company with good wine on the table followed by a wonderful home cooked meal made from the best ingredients you can find, home grown or at least organic!

Who could ask for anything more????

As one who ‘hates shopping’, well most shopping; especially the supermarket/multiple type - Yes, i hate shopping. But the quality independent type shopping, well that is a different story. This is a pleasure, good service and good quality. This is what I do in my private life and what I try to extend into the business life. I believe that the discerning few who are like me enjoy good shopping and patronising good businesses.

A cycle shop which I patronise in London, called Condor cycles, (part of the Rapha Condor Sharp race team) is a prime example of an excellent independent retailer and manufacturer. People who use this shop are not just pleased with the experience are highly delighted. The young family who own the business keep their fingers constantly on the pulse and will be occasionally found serving customers in the shop.

The Kingscot bakery in Upminster and the Marks and Spencer branch, also in Upminster are also examples of an excellent independent and a good branch of a multiple.

I quote these examples of how it is possible to delight and please people to indicate my commitment to by business philosophy and hope that when you choose to shop at JA Campbell that you will take away similar thoughts.

By owning a piece of silver by JA Campbell you will become the proud custodian of a piece of future history and intrinsic value in these days of uncertainty.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith

When I first started as a Silversmith it was at the Central School of Arts on a pre apprenticeship course for 1 year. The course covered the main aspects of Silversmith practical design, history and engraving. My parents bought my starter set of hand tools necessary for all course participants. This consisted of a steel rule, dividers, square and piercing saw. My father gave me his tools which he handmade during his engineering apprenticeship which consisted of a surface guage, a pair of V blocks, odd leg dividers and several others.

When I finished the course at the Central School I started my own apprenticeship with a firm in Clerkenwell, London called Langfords. In common with other lads I wanted all my own tools (it made a boy feel like a man, even if he did not know how to use them properly.) Fortunately my Father worked at Beckton Gas works and they employed craftsmen from all the main trades in order that they could be self sufficient on all their maintenance. One of these tradesman was a highly skilled Blacksmith who forged, in steel, for me copies of a set of hammers belonging to my Master. What a fantastic job he made of these, using tool steel and hardening and tempering them afterwards.

Once the hammer heads were finished I bought the handles (shops are not allowed to sell them these days - ‘Health & Safety’!!!!!!!!) and fitted them on using little steel wedges to hold them in place. Throughout my career these have stood me in good stead. One thing that upset me though is that I lost, or someone pinched, my favourite ‘collet hammer’

At about the age of 26 while working in the Smith shop at William Comyns I was given the opportunity to re train as a silver spinner and the same process stated over again. NB Craftsmen do not like lending out their hand tools. I needed a set of spinning tools, these again were ‘homemade’ using silver steel rod, hot forged out at the working end, to slightly flatten and widen prior to grinding to a rounded surface one side and flat the other. This end, the business end was then polished, hardened and tempered and then even further polished to give a mirror finish. (Any mark or scratch will scratch the surface of the silver.) Then the opposite end was again hot forged into a square tapered point called a tange. This when forced into the hole on its wooden handle will prevent it from turning.

I was told by my foreman spinner that the wooden handles needed to be made of a springy species of wood. Living beside a railway track I found a discarded shunter’s pole hook. My Dad told me that this was made from ash-wood and would be springy. So I cut it in half (to make 2 handles), drilled one end to accept the silver tange and made and fitted a brass feral to prevent the handle from splitting at that end, a bit like a file handle or a wooden chisel handle would have.

Through out my entire career I have been making tools of one sort or another, some because it is just impossible to buy  for example a ‘joint tool’ This is for dressing the ends of silver tubes for making silver hinges. I only use it now for the tiny handle to base joining tubes on the Adam Claret jug.

Apart from the hand tools I have made, there are all the spinning chucks that are required to make all the ’spinings’ we produce. These are in a variety of materials, sometimes wood, for one offs, sometimes brass for spinning larger quantities or duralamin (an Aluminium alloy) when weight needs to be reduced for large diameter chucks. I have been using steel more recently as the price of brass and aluminium has risen.

I have lost count of the hundreds of tools I have produced, but every one has a use!

On my website you will read descriptions of production methods and techniques that are used when making all the items in my collections. I hope you find it interesting.

John Campbell

Designer & Master Silversmith

When you buy, inherit or receive an item made from sterling silver, for example a humble egg cup or a glorious claret jug, you are the guardian of one of the earths precious minerals and you are acquiring something with intrinsic and lasting value.

Base metal versions of the two items mentioned above will most likely become landfill in the future, but because of the intrinsic value of the silver (£3.20 in 2004 to £24 in July 2011) these same items are unlikely to suffer the same fate.

Should you or one of the future owners decide to dispose of them then their value can be released for alternative use.

The recent substantial increase in metal prices means that silver is once again a precious metal to be sought and looked after rather than being wasted and squandered. Convert it from a bullion bar (which although great for investment purposes it looks neither pretty nor is it very useful) into a sterling silver claret jug with the added value of craftsmanship.

What could be nicer than sitting down with a group of friends or relations and decanting a bottle of wine into a silver claret jug or decanter, lighting the candles in the silver candlesticks and enjoing the experience. Silver does not degrade, rot or perish it just improves wth the passage of time as the patina develops.

Buy now while it is still affordable!

Queen Elizabeth 2nd’s Diamond Jubilee is being commemorated with a special limited edition hallmark for 12 months only.

This is in the form of a profile of the young Queen Elizabeth wearing an oversized crown in a diamond shaped surround.

This will make all items bearing this mark highly collectable in the future. All JA Campbell items made during the period will carry the jubilee mark.

Enjoy browsing the JA Campbell website at your lesiure and make your choice. This will be especially significant if you or members of your family are celebrating a diamond anniversary, or 60th  birthday in the next 12 months, and, of course the obvious silver wedding anniversary in any year.

I will be happy to answer any queries you may have on engraving or hallmarking generally.

John Campbell

Master Silversmith