Novus Jewellery Training

  This post contains spoilers - please watch the episode first This week signals the start of the quarter finals with only 5 jewellers remaining. It is starting to become more evident that the jewellers should not only have great fabrication ability, but also strong design skills. The Bestseller challenge this week is to design a pair of hoop earrings.   The jewellers were given 9ct gold to work with in plate, wire or granule form. Hoop earrings have been ancient symbols of status and power for millennia.  These hoops must match perfectly, they can be open or closed, and they must sit on the ear beautifully. They were given 5 hours to manufacture these.  9ct Yellow gold is a very tricky metal to work in.  If you overheat your your granules and burn away the zinc, you have a red looking yellow gold, but not quite redgold colour.  With only 37.5% pure gold content, it melts easily when soldering for no reason, and tends to get very hard and brittle when ...

This post contains spoilers - please watch the episode first. Episode 2 (21 April) kicks off with one less jeweller, only 7 left, as Naomi was voted out last week at the end of episode 1.   The jewellers start with the first project for this week  - the best seller. Wait, what? They did that last week?!  Yes, I know, but it seems that the best seller, and the bespoke challenge is the set format for each episode, with just a change in theme. This week the best seller theme:  A chain collar (4 hours)           Specifications:  Must be 18inches (45cm) long, links must interlink, must sit comfortably on the collar bone.           They were given 15cm of 3mm sterling silver wire, and some silver casting grain (we call  them  granules) Honestly, I did not know specifically what a chain collar was.  Why they could not have said a short decorative chain, with 3 different links, no one knows....

 This post contains spoilers - please watch the episode first. If you haven't heard of the latest reality TV series to hit the screens, where have you been? All that glitters is a BBC reality series that started on the 13th of April 2021.  Only aired in the UK, the best place to watch for the rest of us,  is YouTube. The concept follows the standard recipe format of putting a bunch of jewellers together in a workshop, giving them projects to design and make, and choosing the winners and the losers after each episode. But; the time given for each project is too little, the projects too complex, the skill level too varied - and THAT makes for some interesting television. The contestants remain the same throughout the series, but with each episode one is voted out, until there is only one left. After the first project of each episode, some of the contestants are put on probation (shown by having the light of their display boxes turned off).  They have to then work extra...

Hi All, Welcome to the now official Novus Jewellery Design Studio Blog. Jewellery Design & Manufacturing Classes The main focus of our business is to teach you how to make your own copper, fine silver, sterling silver and gold jewellery. Absolutely NO experience required! Have a look at what our students have created by visiting the student gallery . Remember that ALL of these students are hobby jewellers , not professional jewellers!