Reclaiming sentiment from the back of the drawer.
You supply the inherited gold, family stones, and ancestral pieces - I handle the design, metal refining, and sandcasting directly at my Cambridge bench peg.
Heirloom Jewellery Redesign & Re-Melting at the Bench
How I, and you, reimagine your Jewellery
A discovery call to talk through your ideas, your story, and budget.
You send or deliver the heirloom pieces to my workshop
A design proposal — with sketches and stone options, no obligation.
Handcrafting in your metal, with progress updates at each stage.
Hallmarking, and UK delivery — fully insured.
You Supply the Sentiment. I Craft the Form.
Inherited fine jewellery carries deep emotional weight, but often sits unworn in a box because the style feels dated, fragile, or out of step with how you live now.
Remodelling is circular craftsmanship. Rather than letting precious metal and family history gather dust, you hand over your unworn pieces for a complete bench transformation. I evaluate and assay your gold, carefully un-set inherited diamonds or sapphires under magnification, and cast that exact sentiment into a commanding modern piece — a daily signet, an Art Deco pendant, or a modern solitaire ring.
Reworking Great-Grandmother's Gold into Modern Permanence
When Simon inherited a collection of antique family gold, he wanted to preserve its personal history while commissioning wedding rings that felt distinctly his fiancé and his own. They supplied the ancestral gold, his great grandmothers rings, which I tested and removed the old-cut diamonds from, at my bench, before re-melting it in a crucible.
I cast the metal into a pair of wedding bands, one Art Nouveau in style and the other reflecting the Art Deco both finished with a subtle sandcast texture — carrying generations of family memory into their new chapter.
"when I wore it, it made me even more excited for our wedding than I already was!" — Simon
Expert Goldsmithing at Every Stage
Remodelling family gold takes real metallurgical expertise and an honest appraisal before a single hammer touches metal.
Metal Testing & Crucible Melting: I evaluate your gold's purity (9ct, 14ct, 18ct, or 22ct). Solid yellow gold can be re-melted directly at my bench, while mixed alloys can be re-alloyed. For each piece I combine an element of fresh Single Mine Origin (SMO) gold to guarantee long-term structural integrity.
Precision Gemstone Extraction: Every inherited diamond, sapphire, or ruby you supply is carefully removed from its antique claw setting and inspected under high magnification for micro-fractures before being reset into a new protective flush or bezel setting.
Edinburgh Assay Office Hallmarking: Once I finish casting and setting your piece, it goes directly to the Edinburgh Assay Office for official hallmarking, certifying its metal purity for the next generation.
How Your Heirloom Transformation Works
Supply & Assessment: After an initial call, you drop off or securely post your ancestral pieces to my Cambridge studio. I weigh, test carat purity, photograph and catalog every stone and alloy.
Design & Prototyping: We talk through your vision in detail either in person or by video call. I develop hand sketches or adapt one of my Signature Bench Archetypes — a heavy signet or geometric pendant, say — to suit your stone layout.
Bench Fabrication: I handle the whole physical build — unsetting stones, melting the metal in the crucible, sandcasting the setting, and polishing the final piece at the bench peg before independent hallmarking.
Heirloom remodelling projects generally start from £1,800+, depending on stone extraction, design complexity, and whether fresh alloy is needed.
