Manufacturing

Sea Eagle Crystal Jewellery is a family business. Origionally started by Max and Dianne Shefford under the name of Blue Feather Crystals in 1990 when their four sons were very young.After Max passed away in 2004 the children , now older, became involved in the business and are now responsible for the casting.

As every item is handmade it may be of interest to you to see the process that was involved in the making of your special piece.

Every item starts off as a wax. This is made either by calving wax or injection it into a mould.

To get the uniformity of the Sea Eagle pieces rubber moulds have been made which the wax is injected into.

This shows the mould just after it has been injected with wax.

Yes. The pussy cat helps. He is very involved.

The waxes are taken from the moulds and cleaned up if necessary.

The next stage is called 'Treeing Up' where each wax is melted into a ' tree'

After the tree is completed it goes through a process of being ' invested'. This is where the tree is covered with investment ( a plaster of paris type of mixture ) and put through a vacuum to take out all the air particles.

The flask is left to dry for three days.

After the investment has totally dried it is placed in an oven and cooked for a total of 12 hours at varing degrees. During this time the wax evaporates and as the investment is porous the evaported wax is able to pass through the investment. At the end of the 12 hours all the wax has gone leaving a cavity in the investment identical to the shape that the wax was. Any imperfections in the wax is carried through to the final item.

The flask is then placed in the casting macine where once again a massie vacuum is put through. Into the top of the flask is poured the molten sterling silver or 9ct gold whic is sucked throug very quickly ( because of the great vacuum ) and fill up all the spaces left by the wax when it melted.

The end result after the investment has been washed off is an exact replica of the origional wax tree made of silver or gold.

The pieces are then clipped off the tree and ground with a sandpaper belt to smooth the edges.

They are then rumbled through a series of different mediums to get the polished end result. During this stage the silver is oxidized which gives it a darker antique type finish. This is done by soaking the pieces in a sulphur solution making them totally black and then putting them through the rumbling process again.