Electroforming

Description

Electroforming is a technique used by jewellery makers as well as ceramicists and glass artists. It allows the manufacture of delicate and/or irregular shapes that would be difficult to achieve by other means, as well as repetition pieces (using moulds), which can also be difficult to make. For jewellery, electroforming means that relatively lightweight and delicate shapes can still be made rigid and strong, and that fastenings, etc., can be attached to difficult or irregular shapes. It also allows intricate details to be faithfully reproduced (coating a spider's web in gold to make jewellery, for example).

Leslie Curtis is a lecturer at the School of Jewellery, University of Central England (Birmingham). As well as teaching, he has worked in industry as a designer and is currently researching the use of computers in electroforming. He is one of the UK's leading authorities on electroforming.