Charlie's Goldsmithing Adventure in Finland

Today (Saturday) I returned to Germany, home. Took the train the Helsinki and then an airplane to the Frankfurt Airport, at which my parents were waiting for me.

At the Helsinki Airport, we had over an hour spare time in the duty-free zone. There were reindeer pelts for sale! And we visited the Moomin shop.

Today was our last full day in Lahti, and last day at Salpaus. After school, Agnes and I went to a café with our friends here for the last time, and Zofia spoiled us with a last dinner at her place. That’s a lot of lasts... I‘m pretty sad to be leaving, because I had such a great time. Everything is packed and tomorrow we will make our way to Helsinki for the flight home.

Here are pictures of some of the enamel pieces I worked on today.

First picture: four pairs of earrings made of silver plate that has a guilloche pattern on it. The pattern I made during an internship at the German Museum of Technology using the machines in the jewelry manufacturing exhibit.

Second picture: two pendants. These two pieces were also prepared during the internship mentioned above.

Today I did some gemstone shopping. Sapphires, amethyst, garnet, lapis lazuli, opal, and some others. Also, it is difficult to take a nice picture of all the stones.

This is actually the third (and last) post about this project.

9. Turn on the enamel oven, since it takes some time to reach 820°C.

10. Prepare the enameling colors. Grind the colors into powder using the mortar until  it fits through the sieve. Then wash the colors with distilled water a few times. Put the powder into a little dish and add some water.

11. Clean the surface of the pendant with the fiberglass brush. Then choose a stand for the object to lie on in the oven.

At this point I would like to point out that the different colors should be tested on a test plate to see how they turn out.

12. Use the tool shown in one of the photos above to spread the colors onto the pendant. Since this is the fist layer of two, it should only be half the thickness that the finished enamelled surface will be. Use a cotton cloth to suck the water out of the colors.

13. Put the Pendant in the oven. Take it out when the surface of the enamel has the texture of orange peel. Then let it cool down. The colors will change while cooling down.

14. Add the second layer of enamel. This time leave it in the oven until the surface is glassy smooth. A very rough estimation of the time I left it in the oven is 2:50 minutes.

15. Saw off and file the edge of the pendant.

16. Use grinding stones and then pumice powder to go over the surface of the whole pendant (even the enamel). To make the enamel have a really smooth and shiny surface again, stick it in the oven again.

Finished Pendant:

We had another get-together at Zofia’s place. The grandmother of one of our friends made karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pie) and the traditional spread for it, munavoi (egg paste/butter). We also ate it with different types of cheese.

We also made a pastry called Christmas star. The traditional filling is plum marmalade.

On Saturday we visited the World Heritage Site Suomenlinna. It is a sea fortress spread on six islands near Helsinki. Its construction began in the mid-18th century, when Finland was still part of Sweden. The Finnish name Suomenlinna means Castle of Finland (it was called Viapori until 1918), and its Swedish name Sveaborg means Castle of Sweden.

1. Make a template, trace it onto the silver plate (t=1 mm), and saw the piece (the outer plate) out.

2. Use dapping punches and different types of stakes and mandrels to shape the outer plate. The important part to this step is that the ends for soldering come together.

3. Solder. Use a wire to tie together the ring. File away the excess solder.

4. Continue shaping the ring with different kinds of anvils and stakes. The one in the photo below works especially well.

5. Saw off another piece of silver plate (the inside plate, t=0,6 mm) and bend it using the flat/half-round pliers.

6. File the inside edge of the outer plate so that the inside plate fits nice and snug (I forgot this step, which led to problems with holes later on).

7. Stamp the inside plate with the correct stamps before soldering it into the outer plate. Hollow objects are not easy to stamp. At all. (I know beach I also made this mistake.)

8. Solder the inside plate into the outside plate. Saw off the protruding ends and file the edge into shape.

9. Put the ring (hole down) on a small piece of silver plate (the face plate) and solder. Saw off the excess of the silver plate. After this point the ring is (or should be) a hollow closed space, so it should not be heated again.

10. File, grind and polish the surface of the ring.

At this point I had to fix a hole using some wire (it ended up too big to fix with only solder after my first attempt at filling the hole).

11. I chose to make a hammer surface. It does not work well with a hollow object. I had to use a lot of force, which changed the shape of the ring slightly.

12. Oxidise (creating a black patina) the ring. Then polish the inside and the face of the ring. Polish the ridges created by hammering using the polishing steel (the tool in the background of the picture above).

13. Engrave the face of the ring.

Finished ring:

Today we visited the medieval church in Hollola. It was built in the late 15th and early 16th century.

The wooden statues are still the originals that survived the reformation, and the original wooden doors are also still present.

It also houses a babtismal font from the 14th century and the grave of Dietrich von Essens.

Devil’s field = pirunpelto

We found an orienteering control, but there didn’t seem to be an event going on.

Devil’s nest = pirunpesä

Pitsihuvila = lace villa, because of the white wooden decorations

After returning from Naantali, we spent some more time walking around in Turku. In the Market Hall there is a nice Café that is set up to look like a train. We also took a quick look inside the Turun taidemuseo (Turku Art Museum).

Today we went to Naantali, which has a lot of old wooden fishers’ houses. While walking along the harbor, we saw what we think was a fishing competition. Two rows of men sitting very patiently on the dock. We also looked at another church, the St. Birgitta Church. On one of the Islands of the Åland archipelago is the moominworld (but it’s closed during the winter).