Our Cornish tin jewellery and gifts are hand cast and hand finished at our workshops in Wheal Jane. The tin used is 100% Cornish tin, mined at South Crofty before its closure in 1998. The tin concentrate is smelted using a modern furnace, much to the relief of the craftsmen, and poured intosand to produce round 'buttons' that will then go through the cleaning process. Each 'button' is fired in a wood burner to get rid of all impurities. Only the first 20% that drips through is clean enough to go through the next process so we continue to fire until we have very little dripping through. This tin is then put into a melting pot where again only the first 20% is clean enough to be made into ingots. We continue this process untill all the tin is cleaned. This then becomes the ingots used in our jewellery and gifts.
The tin ingots are tested in our laboratory at Wheal Jane, this is then certified by the head chemist for use by ourselves.
The tin ingots are melted in a pot in the jewellery workshop and each piece of jewellery is then hand cast using moulds and a centrifugal system.Once cast they are carefully inspected, any not coming up to our very high standards will be put back into the melting
pot and the tin re used. The castings are then 'fettled'(sanded and filed) by hand until they are in perfect condition.
Even at this stage we may make the decision that too much has been fettled and the casting will be put back into the pot. The casting in then put into a polishing tumbler for around one and a half hours, all residue from the tumbler washed off with boiling water and then left to dry in hot air. Now the casting is highly polished and ready to be finished. The cufflink backs, brooch pins, lapel pins and ear studs are hand soldered to the castings and chains, ear wires and gems are hand fitted.
We now have the finished product, quality checked and ready to box in its silver coloured presentation box.

All this is done by two dedicated craftsmen, Maurice and Brett. Each has skills that compliment their work, Maurice is a tool maker and Brett makes his own jewellery from home.

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