We sell our
lead free pewter jewelry to over 300 Museum Gift Stores, Galleries,
and National Parks throughout the United States.
How it's Made!!!
Alice Seely designs all the jewelry,
oversees
production, and personally makes a lot of
the jewelry.
We begin by heating an ingot of pewter
in a pot to 600 degrees. Below is a pot of melted pewter.
We pour the melted pewter into a
centrifuge (spinner) containing a rubber mold Alice has previously made.
Below is a rubber mold.
The centrifuge spins for 30 seconds
after the melted pewter is poured. Below is the open centrifuge with the
mold held down by a round metal frame.
All Photos
Courtesy of Ralph Nix
The
centrifuge has been started, the rubber mold is inside, The hot pewter is
being poured into the mold through the top of the casting machine..
After 30
seconds the centrifugal machine stops, we open the cover, take out the mold,
and pull the finished pieces off the mold. The pieces are on gates, "spokes"
that go back in the pewter pot to be re-melted.
The cast pieces are broken off the
gates and placed in a box, face up. The box is taken outside and the pieces
are sprayed with a special paint that doesn't come off after it dries.
The
painted pieces, We wrap parts of the pieces in blue tape where we
don't want to paint them.
The
painted pieces are brought back inside for cleaning. We use old blue
jeans, since they have no lint, and wipe off the top of the pieces, leaving
the black paint inside the recesses for definition.
We finish drying the pieces under a hot lamp to set the paint.
After the
pieces dry, they are buffed on a felt wheel by hand until they are shiny,
smooth, and have clean edges.
We take the buffed pieces into the
cleaning room and spray off any dust left from the buffing process.
We attach pin backs to pins with a
special riveting process.
Since our factory is 26
miles from town, we print and cut all of our display cards and make all of
our own display boxes. Here we are cutting our cards on a cutter.
We
package our pins in matchbooks that we print, fold and cut in-house.
This is a pin inside a matchbook
This is the outside of
a finished matchbook. There is special writing on the back of the matchbook
that makes the pin special.
Our Earrings and pins
are ready for packing and shipping
Customers
can purchase bracelets right off the wall at factory prices.
