Silver spinning

Spinning produces three-dimensional hollow-ware items such as trophies, vessels and cups. Items can be made to varying scales, in quantity, in a uniform and quick way. Spinners also produce and maintain the associated tools, machinery, formers and chucks used to produce spun vessels.

In the 1950s there were hundreds of spinners, but the trade side of the industry has contracted significantly. Now very few large companies are left; most are one man or two man bands in light industrial units.

It takes practice and years of experience to learn to spin metal. Spinners understand how different metals behave and become skilled at looking at designs and understanding how best to achieve the required form.

• Turning
• Drafting

• Silver plating – over recent years many platers have closed and in Sheffield and there is only one known silver plater left.

• Skills issues: There is a lack of training. There is also an expense of raw materials in training and lack of large orders to create repetition for trainees.
• Market issues: The loss of large trade companies in centres such as Sheffield, London and Birmingham, combined with cheap imports from Far East are perceived as the biggest issues facing the craft.

• The Goldsmiths Company 
• The Goldsmiths Centre 
• Contemporary British Silversmiths 

Silver spinning is carried out within some silversmithing companies.

However, many artisan silversmiths rely on outsourcing spinning to individual tradespeople.  The spinner will produce three-dimensional hollow-ware items such as trophies, vessels and cups that will then go back to the silversmith or to another tradesperson for finishing.

• Silver spinning survey carried out by Helen Hood, 2020
• Steve Gifford demonstrating silver spinning in 1979 on YouTube
• Hill, Brian, and Putland, Andrew, (2014) Silversmithing – a contemporary guide to making (Ramsbury: The Crowood Press)
• The last turn of the lathe – article by Emma Crichton Miller for the Goldsmiths Company