Celtic Gold - How they are made

Each new ring begins with a sketch, after the design is perfected master models are hand made in gold. This design requires three master models.

Rubber molds are then made from the master models. The molds are then cut by hand using a surgical scalpel.

Molten wax is then injected into the mold, producing a wax duplicate of the master model. Each wax pattern is an exact duplicate of the original. This process makes it possible to make many identical pieces.

In a process know as "lost wax casting" dating back more than 5,000 years , the wax patterns are cast in gold. After casting, each element is filed and polished by hand before being soldered together to produce a finished ring. Some of my Celtic rings have as many as seventeen individual pieces in one ring. Each ring is then heat treated to produce the darkened background before they are final finished using powdered red rouge.

These methods of jewelry making have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. The tools and the workbench where I sit are as they were more than forty years ago, when I first began making jewelry.There are newer methods of making jewelry in this modern age, there are Lasers, Milling machines, even computer generated CAD programs, young men in white coats making jewelry at a keyboard, their hands never even touch the gold. I prefer my way, a single artisan, an ancient method to produce an object of beauty.