The silver lining

Whilst my 2 days in Leon were pretty relaxed, one thing I did do was a spend the afternoon with a local jewellery maker, making a silver ring. It was suggested to me by a friend who had done a couple of other activities with this agency who specialise in more authentic excursions for tourists, always involving local people. I wasn't really sure if it was my kind of thing, but after 3 months of travelling, I didn't feel too inspired by a lot of the standard activities that are on offer, and this seemed at least like something new.

We started by looking through brochures and photos of what other people had made for some inspiration, before trying our best to draw out what we wanted to make and describe to our jewellery maker what we wanted. In designing the ring I was trying to balance wanting to make something a bit more interesting so that the manufacturing part of the project would be fun, with not wanting some garish piece of jewellery that id probably never wear. In the end I probably went for something on the more conservative (and therefore simple) end of the scale, but at least I'm happy with how it turned out.

The beginning - a silver bracelet

We were moderately involved in the manufacturing process, but weren't required to engage in any too strenuous activity. It was good being there and watching the transformation, as well as being able to have the ring sized exactly to my hand (although given the intense heat, my fingers were a bit swollen and I notice now that its a little bit loose).


Making melting down silver look cool

It took us about 4 hours to make the two rings, and we paid at the end based on the weight of the silver. My ring came in at exactly 4g and was 40USD.

Hitting the ring in a semi-controlled manner. This was partly to give it the unpolished effect I wanted, and partly to make the ring up to the size I wanted.

The final product - rough finish with two small lines around the ring