I am trying to clear my to-do list of lots of little tasks - some are personal items, some for The Adventurous Silversmith.  

Thus I have come to the "make stakes" for the teapot project.  One of the prep items for this was to talk to Kevin Potter of PotterUSA, when I pass through Tucson, Az a few weeks ago when coming back from Texas. He said he would make the stake heads for me and to just send him the drawings. 

Which brings us to to now.  I have to do four drawings: The planishing stake, the rounding stake, the upper top curve, and the lower bottom curve. 

I use QCAD to do my drawings so I can then print them out - or send along and get them made.  I have templates for the curves but I must measure them, several times, before I actual enter the information into the program. 

Last week I took another trip to Nechamkin Silver Studio for the next lesson(s) on the Teapot Project.   

This week I learned many things.   1) cleaning the solder joint inside and out, 2) fix any pin holes, gaps, and under cuts,  3) heavy planish the seam, 4) truing the tube, and 5) planning the next step which is raising the top and bottom.

We started off with how to properly clean the excess solder off the solder joint which is lots of filing and gentle sanding but not taking off the silver; just the solder.   Once that was done we could evaluate the seam to determine what gaps and pin holes had to be fixed and why. Then we moved onto heavy planishing of the seam to get a consistent wall thickness.  All of this consumed 3 days. On the the 4th day and my last with Liza, this week, we trued up the seam and then we could get to work refining the design. We had to take measurements from the sketches and the tube to determine where to start the raising at each end and from there we made our templates. From the templates I can cut/carve wood stake models which I will then have cast.  Then the other design elements had to be considered - spout shape and size the handle shape and where to place both, the lid shape and how to fit the lid to the pot and the bottom rim or feet?  

One must not forget an important part of tea pots - how does it pour? Many a teapot do not pour correctly because the spout is too short or too long which can cause the tea to spill out the lid or placed to high on the pot wall such that the last bit of tea can't be poured.  And the pot handle - can you get the lid off and on easily? Does the pot have a vent hole to facilitate the tea flow?? 

I now have lots of homework to do before I return next year:
1) make 1 if not 2 more tubes, in brass,  so we can use them for practice raising. This means they have to be soldered and cleaned to the point where we ended, this week
2) make a stake for truing the tube(s) because when you heavy planish, the tube is no longer round.
3) get the raising stakes made - so I have to cut the wood and get them cast. Finding a casting house will be fun!
4) study teapot design and make some choices for the spout, handle, lid and lid finial, and the bottom - feet or rim?

Here are lots of pictures ... 

Two weeks ago I was Nechamkin Silver Studio to start what I consider to be an essential project for silversmiths. I am going to say it is a must on the silversmith's "bucket list"  - THE TEAPOT.  

Note: we are talking traditional silversmith, not a present day silversmith who makes jewelry out of silver.  A traditional silversmith how makes hollowware such as bowls and other vessels, trays, dishes, cutlery; and other functional items.

Making a teapot has been on my list of things to learn and make since I started on this path over 5 years ago. Actually it was on my list since I was a little kid and read about silversmiths and now I am finally starting the project.

I have read as many books as I can get my hands on about raising and the various parts of the teapot - the body, the spout, the handle, the lid and the feet or support on the bottom. Then there is the making of the parts - the raising, sinking soldering, making patterns and more. BUT until you start planning and making one, the concept of how much time and effort it takes starts to sink in (yeah, that's a metal pun) and unless you have someone to guide in mentor you, the teapot can be an exceptional failure. 

That brings us to earlier this year when Liza Nechamkin and I started to plan this project which will take many visits to her studio and a lot of homework on my part afterwards to either practice what I learned in each studio visit or to move the project along. 

Which brings us to two weeks ago, which was the first session - Making the body of the teapot.  Way back when, many teapots had raised bodies but raising a body can take time and can be tea-dious (see another pun) and so the body of this teapot will be seamed.     The best seam for long tubes is lapped and keyed which is what I learned to do on the first day of my visit along with forming the sheet into the tube and wiring it for soldering.  On the second day I soldered the tube with hard and I mean HARD solder.  Trust me hard solder does not like to flow and getting a 6" long seam soldered is difficult - imagine that easy solder flows like butter when melted; then hard solder flows like frozen cheese!  Plus the tube started out as 12" long and is 18g (0.04") thick which requires massive amounts of heat to just bring it up to temperature and THEN you have to solder it with hard solder.    

But before I soldered the silver tube, I made a practice tube out of copper with the lapped and keyed seam so I had twice the practice of doing it all including the soldering. 

The soldering was done in three phases - tacking it, the soldering and then the fixing of areas where the solder did not flow or did not flow enough.  The entire process was nerve wracking to say the least but I did it with Liz's wonderful instruction.

Now I have a massive tube of silver on my workbench.  Next time we will clean up the solder and planish the seam and THEN we will raise the top and bottom in.  Until that next session, which will be sometime next year, I will be practicing making lapped and keyed seam and soldering the seams closed.  Hmm, tricket boxes?

Here is a video of the process, enjoy.