Wallis Hunter - A Scottish Jewellery Blog

Caledonia Gold has Arrived! Kilt pins and more...

2012-01-27T10:07:00.003Z

Howdy!
It's been another long while - what a busy winter we've been having here in Carradale!
We've spent most of the last couple of months working through new designs to add to our sets of Jewellery and Kilt Pins but also working on an entirely new product!
It's called Caledonia Gold an we're quite excited about it - especially since it got a wonderful reception at the Scottish International Trade Fair this week!
Caledonia Gold is 9ct gold with a touch of rare, panned Scottish gold. So far we have a small but nicely formed set of silver and gold celtic and traditional jewellery and also a couple of super looking kilt pins. You can check out the full set on the Wallis Hunter Jewellery site. I'll post a couple of pics to whet your appetite though...

Quarter Winds - Sterling Silver Kiltpin with Caledonia Gold Insert.

Caledonia Ring - Sterling Silver Ring with Caledonia Gold Shoulders.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Rails - Sterling Silver Pendant Caledonia Gold CRM Rose.

Celtic Drop Ear Hangers - Gold Earrings with Caledonia Gold.

Caledonia Gold Wedding Band - 5mm

Solid Celtic Circle - Sterling silver pendant with Caledonia Gold insert.

Coming soon: A new group of pewter kilt pins (not necessarily as traditional as they sound!)

Take care!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Back in Action

2011-11-22T09:49:00.001Z

Order has been restored here at Wallis Hunter. Trish is home! Hooray! I'm sure she'll post up here all about her escapades if she feels like it.
We've been working on yet more kilt pin designs here in the workshop and also some interesting "shapes". Something a little abstract and fluid but I'll leave it at that for now, I'll get pics up here as soon as they start looking more like a set of jewellery.
Has anyone noticed that it's nearly Christmas?? I don't know if Fatherhood comes with some kind of life accelerant or I've just not been paying attention but this year seems to have flown in!
Just as well we're all geared up here so you can get a hold of jewellery and kilt pins from our sites and they'll be with you in plenty of time.

Ta for now.

PS - It's finally winter here in Carradale - I had to scrape ice off the windscreen this morning! Woohoo!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

A Small Departure

2011-11-08T09:23:00.001Z

With the moulding machine back in action (thanks to some oven wire from a catering supplies company on eBay!) we can get going moulding the new kilt pins we've been working on. Not to mention a small backlog of jewellery from our customers.
In the interim we've had to keep ourselves occupied - personally I've been up on "The Roof" with Mike tacking down some Tyvek waterproofing and last week I even had the good fortune of trying out his new mower - a Viking beastie with a one touch handle that lets you alter the height of the machine - highly recommended!
But our small departure is over and now it's time to get going with what we do best - making kiltpins and jewellery. :D
Ta for now!
PS - Congratulations to Lynsay on passing her driving test! The roads will never be safe again... ;)

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

It never rains...

2011-11-01T10:05:00.000Z

In a small addition to my previous bemoaning of machinery - the heater plates in our mould press (vulcanizer) have packed in! Just when I was putting the finishing touches to the new kilt pin for one our customers (a Fairbairn & Sykes Commando Knife no less!) which means we've had a weeks delay in being able to make a rubber mould of and consequently, casting it! Urgh.

Not to worry, the new heaters should arrive today or tomorrow from the always wonderful H.S. Walsh. Thank you!

Better go and get this casting on the go - Cath's off on holiday for the week so we're all having to work three times as hard to make up for her lack of presence!

Ta ta!

PS - Can anyone confirm that we've had more than 60 days of rain here in Kintyre?? Well, the sun's out today - hip, hip, hip, hooray! (Sorry Trish!)

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Bronze and Pewter Kilt Pins: The New Hotcakes?

2011-10-18T09:31:00.002+01:00

It would seem that pewter kilt pins are the order of the day here in Bonny Scotland. They're being shipped to suppliers faster than we can count! Despite only having four kiltpins in the range, people seem to have fallen for them instantly - which makes us all feel a little more worthwhile and with a further four designs being worked on as I type, it's exciting to think that more of our humble workshops' wares are being admired and enjoyed across the world.

Almost equally popular are our new Bronze and Silver kilt pins. You all seem to be quite enamoured with the juxtaposition of the copper-coloured metal with our trademark highly-polished silver.

Well, better trundle off down the stairs - I feel a new design coming on...

Ta for now.

PS - It's jaggy bunnet weather here in Carradale. The whole West Coast of Scotland seems to be struggling to get round the concept of having an Indian Summer. Well, just as well we don't mind the rain.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

A Kiln, A Kiln, my Kingdom for a Kiln!

2011-10-11T10:17:00.003+01:00

Have you ever noticed that sometimes technology just fights back? We've had a wee spate of the infernal machines not doing what they're supposed to recently. The relay on our main kiln, "Big Red" started chattering - a common issue with large contactors (as they're known, apparently!) So, no problem - ordered a new one and got 'er back up and running.

Minimal fuss and we caught it in time so that there was no delay in getting kilt pins out to customers!

But then...

The "flipping" coils decided to arc onto one of the flasks the very next week! Burning a nice hole in 1/4" of steel and eventually melting said coil! OK, so, we need to let it cool down, take the flasks out and replace (from stock thank goodness!) the coil bank. Up and running and casting was only delayed by about 12 hours.

Phew - I'm glad that's over and done with.

Oh, wait a minute - why isn't our secondary kiln firing up? That's right - Ol' Greeny (that's the kiln...) decided to melt the wire going from her thermocouple (read: heavy duty thermometer) to the kiln controller and fried the processor which is now no longer made!

Well, at least I now have a firm grasp of the workings of the kilns and their controllers, contactors and their love of failing on you when deadlines are tight!

Yours, more informed,
Sandy.

PS - Mike: "Sandy, you'd better order a new relay - Big Red's just blown her shiny new one..."

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Our Away Day 2011

2011-10-03T10:19:00.001+01:00

Just a quickie beforeSandy sneaks in with the next info. about our goodies.

Here we are on our 'away day' - this year we went to Bute. It's a lovely gentle island -easily accessible from Carradale via 2 ferries. We have loads of coffees , lunches, meals etc and in between throw in a bit of culture. Mount Stuart, the big house on Bute, is glorious and most unusual so well worth a visit. Other little goodies on the island are a Victorian fernery, the Victorian loos, and loads and loads of cows. Unfortunately Sandy couldn't make it but here are 'the girls' at the viewpoint overlooking the Kyles of Bute.

We liked the bus coming over the ferry. West Coast Motors of course. Hope they don't put it on the Carradale run.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

The Kilt Pin Company dot com has arrived!

2011-09-27T09:48:00.004+01:00

The all new "Kilt Pin Company Website has gone live! It's very cool too. It has all of our Trade Prices available for you retailers and everything in our Kilt Pin Company range - kiltpins (silver, bronze AND our spanking new pewter kilt pins,) cufflinks, plaid brooches, blanket pins and our much under utilised kilt jacket buttons.

www.thekiltpincompany.com

Above you can see a wee preview of how it looks - it's pretty swanky if you ask me and works really nicely. Perfect for picking out your wedding, birthday or (dare I say it...) Christmas presents. Remember, we ship worldwide so all you kilt wearing folks out in Canada, USA, Australia, Japan, et al can get your hands on a genuinely "made in Scotland" accessory for your highland wear.

Take care and have a browse round - it's really pretty fun!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Pewter Kilt Pins

2011-09-06T08:45:00.006+01:00

At last! The pewter kilt pin designs have been photographed for your viewing pleasure and without further ado here they are...

923kpp - Twisted Thistle Pewter Kiltpin set with Cabochon Amethyst (£28.50):
(also available set with Hematite (£26.00) and Black Onyx (£29.80))

922kpp - Celtic Beastie Pewter Kilt Pin (£23.00):

921kpp - Thistle Sword with Stag Head Pewter Kilt Pin set with Cabochon Amethyst (£31.30):
(also available set with Hematite (£29.80) and Black Onyx (£29.80))

920kpp - Jagged Thistle Sword Pewter Kilt Pin (£28.00):

These are already available in shops around Scotland and will be online as soon as the NEW WEBSITE is up and running (should be around the end of Sept.... :S )

Ta for now!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Original Pendants and Brooches in Silver

2011-08-16T10:09:00.002+01:00

Just look what we've been up to!

Not satisfied making Silver kilt pins and Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs, we decided it was time to make some fun and chunky pendants and brooches in agate, landscape jasper and silver.

They're all completely one-off jewellery and obviously, totally unique stones and available from our shop here in sunny Carradale. (Although if you really fancy one, please contact us for some more information.)

On another note, this piccy was taken using our brand new Olympus Tough TG-810 digital camera. It's seriously cool, with GPS geo-tagging, drop-proof, 5x optical zoom, built in memory capacity, 720p High Definition video recording and most importantly of all, unlike our old Olympus, this one has a double-seal system so that it's water (AND TEA!) -proof to 10m!

Did I mention that it not only has face-detection but also... (drum roll please...) PET FACE DETECTION! Yet to be tested but McUgly and Ginny are primed and ready for the testing to begin. Hmm, I wonder if Olympus know you're not allowed to do animal testing anymore?

Anyway, back to work! Ta for now.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Jewellery

2011-08-09T10:27:00.005+01:00

Charles Rennie Mackintosh jewellery is back in vogue at last. His wonderful designs first inspired we jewellery makers many years ago but it's immense popularity meant the designs were picked up overseas and imported to the UK, flooding the market with cheap reproductions and (forgive me) uninspired tat.

We here at Wallis Hunter were one of the original makers of CRM jewellery and once employed 16 locals to make these wonderful designs which were distributed far and wide. Unfortunately due to the cheap imports, the market eventually suffocated (as it did - and still does in many other industries creating high-end products.)

The tide of mediocre replicas finally abated a few years ago and people have obviously rekindled their love for Mackintosh deisign (thanks to the wonderful and unfaltering efforts of museums and gallerys such as The Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.) We've always loved our CRM range and kept a small portion of it going ever since we started but with this renewed passion of The People, we've finally restored our collection to it's full glory and are in the process of adding it to the site.

Here are a few of my favourite pieces from the set to whet your appetite:

Mackintosh Squares Kilt Pin

Mackintosh Leafy Square Cufflinks

Mackintosh Circular Rose and Bead Ear Stud

Mackintosh Blue Topaz Marquis Twisted Wire Bangle

Mackintosh Sunrise Brooch (set with Cabochon Garnet)

Mackintosh Blue Enamelled Tulip Pendant

Mackintosh Nugget Pendant (set with Square cut Amethyst)

Mackintosh Circle Brooch (set with three Garnets)

Mackintosh Rose Circle Brooch
(also available as a pendant)

Pretty good, eh?

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Bronze Kilt Pins Online!

2011-07-26T09:15:00.005+01:00

Our Bronze Kilt Pins are finally online! Well, to be accurate, they're actually bronze and silver! Most of the designs are a bronze piece with sterling silver decoration. All cast in-house and finished right here in Carradale.

The nice thing about bronze is that while the piece you buy is a copper colour, once it's been used for a while, the colour will gradually change as the layers of oxide build up. Cool, eh?

I'll pop the pics up on here but to get a proper look at them, check out either The Kilt Pin Company or Wallis Hunter Jewellery sites.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Lynsays Chains

2011-06-21T09:09:00.005+01:00

Well, Wee Lyns has been at it again. No, not the "The Morgans" - making superb sterling silver necklaces! These have proved to be one of our biggest sellers in the shop this year.

Her flair for making pretty jewellery is clear to see and despite the rising cost of silver our customers just don't seem to be able to help themselves.

Here are three of her recent designs...

An "over the head" style necklace:

A classic fastening necklace complete with flower and heart charms:

And finally a pretty little bracelet:

These are only available in the shop (ie not on the website) but if you'd like to enquire about them please don't hesitate to email us.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Wallis Hunter Casting - The other feather in our cap ;)

2011-06-14T09:45:00.002+01:00

As I've mentioned before - we're a multi-faceted bunch here in Carradale and in case you need some more info on our Precious Metal Casting capabilities, we're proud to present... (fanfare please, maestro...)

Jewellery Casting Scotland dot Com

Ahem...

This is a place for Jewellery manufacturers (and anyone really!) to find out more about our casting side, to get in touch with any queries or even just to submit orders!

We're always keen to hear from new people and have the ability to do very short runs to very large ones! Silver casting, gold casting, brass casting, even bronze casting are all available and we tend to have really quick turn-around - especially for repeat orders where we have a rubber mould already. Moulding is done in-house by both vucalnising and cold rubber moulding.

I'm probably boring you a bit now but it's a cool process and everyone from kilt and sporran makers, clock builders, fashion designers and royalty have a some Wallis Hunter Castings. :)

Take care for now!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Pewter Kilt Pins, Bronze Kilt Pins and new designs

2011-05-31T08:59:00.003+01:00

Well, it's been a while - it's been hectic here in the workshop!

Thought I'd pop on and tell you about The Kilt Pin Co's expansion...

It all started a while back with Peter B (our man on the road) suggesting we might look onto pewter kilt pins. We've since been working on some designs which we'll have cast elsewhere (as casting pewter is not our specialist subject and it's too easy to get it mixed up with silver - not sure the Assay Office Edinburgh would be too chuffed if we got them mixed up!)

It might be a while before the pewter pins arrive in the set but there may still be some additions in the meantime.

We were asked recently by one of our customers if it would be possible for us to cast their designs in bronze. Never one to shy away from a new challenge, Mike said we'd give it a go! Since then I've been wild about Bronze. It's a wonderful and much under appreciated metal. Phosphor bronze particularly.

With this new found ancient metal under our belts, we've set out to create some exciting new kilt pins in Bronze and Silver. The muted browns and red of the bronze work incredibly well with our highly polished decorations (Saltire flags, thistles, etc.)

As soon as we've got the designs finalised, I'll put them up on the web and show them off here as well - they really are pretty exciting!

For now I'd best get back to the bench.

Take care!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

There's no smoke without Kerosene

2011-04-25T10:00:00.005+01:00

Friday's barbecue day so here are our two intrepid silversmiths cooking up.

No, I tell a lie, this is the beginning of the long process of reclaiming our scrap. Everything -but everything - in the workshop, from the tiniest bit of emery paper, to polishing mops, files, and polishing dust, is saved because it might, just might, have a little gold tucked in there somewhere. Every now and then when the bucket gets too full, they have a very smelly bonfire which burns off paper , dust etc and leaves a nice dusty sludge. Eventually this, as well as all sorts of other bits and pieces, is parcelled up and sent off to the bullion dealers for recycling. As we never know what's in the mix it's always a gamble as to what the whole pot's worth, but in these days of rising gold prices we're seldom disappointed.

We see the proposed gold mine at Tyndrum is seriously struggling to get planning permission and has halved the amount of tailings etc it plans to dump. It's a tricky one. It is in a really glorious part of Scotland , and in one of our two National Parks, and having seen the mess these mines can make one has to understand the planners' point of view. But of course we are just thrilled at the idea of getting hold of some real Scottish gold (our efforts at panning at Wanlockhead produced half a gramme!) . Chris Sangster who is in charge of the operation is certainly determined and we will be keeping a close eye on developments.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

New Kilt Pins on the KPC site

2011-03-08T09:24:00.009Z

Well, not before time, I've put the NEW KILT PINS onto the Kilt Pin Company Website (and the Wallis Hunter Jewellery site.)

They've gone down a treat at the Scottish Trade Fair (SECC, Glasgow.) We think they're pretty cool, here they are:

867k - Lance and Pennant
£109.30

866kCit - Celtic Trillion with Citrine
£94.80

866kBT - Celtic Trillion with Blue Topaz
£99.80

865k - Fleur de Lys
£89.80

864k - Lion Rampant
£124.80

These are all available online and in our shop. Plus jewellers, galleries and kilt shops across Scotland. Trade enquiries are welcome and access to our Online Trade section is available upon request.

Hope you all have a good week!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

I'm Back - Wallis Hunter Returns to it's former glory.

2011-03-01T09:22:00.002Z

That's right, the prodigal father returns! It's been a lovely couple of weeks for me but I'm not sure my absence hasn't caused a few headaches back here in Wallis Hunter HQ.

It's been seriously busy, the "RR" job seems to be consuming every ounce of our time which is a shame because Peter, our agent is out on the road sending home orders and for some reason we're up to our oxters in casting orders!

Mike has just returned from a morning on his "roof" with a grin - I suspect this is because in the two weeks I've been off he hasn't had a chance to even LOOK at the job!

In other news (barely related to jewellery) the plumber has FINALLY fitted the new central heating boiler! No more cold toes! It's been a chilly winter without it.

Anyway, I've gibbered enough now, time to go and re-acquaint myself with our lovely Lost wax casting machine, polish some prestigious inlays, make some wedding rings and most importantly bore everyone silly with talk of babies! :D

See you all soon!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2011-02-25T11:06:00.002Z

Suddenly everyone seems to be coming out of their winter torpor and business is getting lively again . After the SECC we noticed a significant demand for Rennie Mackintosh style jewellery again, and this is continuing. We have a very nice solid range of CRM, some with enamel, some with wee stones, and covering the whole gamut from bracelets to ear rings. Not much of this is made in Scotland these days, but ours certainly is, and that is a good selling point. We are going to get special CRM logo boxes again, but box makers are a law unto themselves and organising it seems to take ages - even when they're not having to come from China.

However we are getting some super new kilt pin boxes at last; our last ones were made in China and had to be ordered months ahead, and the last people kept promising them when clearly they had never been ordered. So we're delighted to have found a Scottish supplier who has designed some really nice ones for us at a good price and we should soon be getting delivery.

On a personal note Mike's right hand (and chief blogger) Sandy is on paternity leave after the birth of his wee boy, another Sandy - the tenth Sandy in the line. They were clearly struggling to think of a name . Mike's going to call him 10, but I think I'll settle for Downing Street. However we have missed the Dad who is far better at casting than the rest of us are. He'll probably be sneaking a picture up onto the blog when he comes back.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2011-02-01T16:43:00.003Z

I am so ashamed! At least I am on the part of Mike and Sandy who are supposed to be serious bloggers. So I'll fill you in, as one of our visitors did point out that the blog was last written up in November!

We've had an uncomfortable winter as the central heating gave up and we have seriously struggled against the freezing cold. Downside of our idyllic spot is that central heating menders are few and far between.....But we're organised at last.

Then the water supply froze. Fortunately it was over Christmas when everyone was off except me and Mike.

And now we have a hugely big and difficult order which we are having to work night and day to fulfill. Enjoying the challenge and the very high standards required.

SECC Gift Fair at the end of January was a nice surprise. A really superb show, well filled with exhibitors and visitors alike, and we were well pleased with it. If you missed us we have some nice new kilt pins (on the site), and we are also finding that Mackintosh jewellery is coming back in vogue. And we are probably the only serious producer of it left in Scotland. And of course we introduced our nice little set of kilt buttons - terrific for that extravagent kilt jacket.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Long time! We've been busy!

2010-11-16T11:59:00.002Z

Yep, pretty darned busy is what we've been!

In fact, I'm just about to pop home for some lunch and then I've another casting to do!

Thought I'd jump on here for a moment to "tell the world" about our latest product under The Kilt Pin Company -

Silver Highland Kilt Jacket Buttons!

We have 8 in the set so far and hope to expand on this as soon as we get a chance.

In the meantime, I'll upload a couple of pics so you know what I'm havering about.

Cheers for now!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-09-29T10:17:00.003+01:00

We went up to a small trade show in the SECC September 19th to 20th , and what a success! Buyers and sellers alike found it an excellent wee show; a bit like the Spring one without all the kilts and all the tat, so it was a very good place for seeing what's new. From a buyers point of view there was more than enough time in a day to get round, so they could relax and have time to speak to their suppliers, and for those of us who had stands it was super to have time to chat to customers. As we have an agent on the road, and also many orders just come in by fax or e-mail, it's lovely to put a name to a face.

So all you retailers who didn't make it , note for next year when it will be bigger and better!

And for those of you not in the trade, this is one of the many ways we all get together and shops get a chance to order our goods. Nowadays web sites play a much bigger part in this area, but we also rely on good old foot slogging reps and agents, catalogues, and any other way we can manage to get orders out of people!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Vacuum Wax Injectors...

2010-08-31T13:50:00.003+01:00

So, as you may be aware, we're lost wax casters. The process of creating a wax version of a piece of jewellery (or whatever you like really,) covering it in plaster, melting the wax out and filling the hole that's left with metal has been around for quite a long time (over 2000 years!)

Since then, lots of technology has come along to make our job as jewellers easier. An example is The Vacuum Wax Injector. An excellent bit of kit with a large, heated wax chamber and a central vacuum chamber.

The Injector has, as is shown below (in my really fast paintbrush sketch) a nozzle which the rubber mould is pushed against. The nozzle first sucks air out of the mould (and into the vac. chamber) then, forces wax, under pressure into the mould from the wax chamber.

See:

We use a Yasui Vacuum Wax injector in the workshop. In fact, we have three! One of which sits in standby in case one of the ladies decides that it's time to break something. Or, as is more often the case - one needs cleaning out.

Sounds pretty simple: empty the old wax out of the wax pot, give it a polish up and hey presto!

Pfft, where would we be if life was THAT easy?!

First, yes, you empty the wax from the wax pot chamber, soaking up any excess mucky wax with paper towels. (Did I mention that all this has to be done at the operating temperature of 75 degrees C??)

Repeat with the inner vacuum chamber.

Burn knuckles (try not to swear, there are customers in the shop!)

Fill up the vacuum chamber with BOILING HOT water.

Remember that doing this will cause a complete vacuum pump rebuild and proceed by emptying out the vacuum chamber and filling the outer WAX chamber with BOILING water.

Fit the top, apply pressure, Vac time to ZERO, Injection time to MAX and press the "GO" button.

Boilding water should RUSH out of the nozzle, cleaning as it goes. Next time, put a bucket in front of the nozzle - OUCH!

Repeat until all that horrible sludge has left the nozzle.

Time to get the sludge out of the vacuum nozzle - same process in reverse.

Fill a jug with boiling water (discard specs because they're steamed up and covered in bl**dy wax!)

Fit a foot of tubing to the nozzle, the other end is submerged into the steaming jug, 1cm from the bottom.

Vacuum on, Vacuum Time to MAX, Injection time to ZERO, press the "go" button and....

GURGLE GURGLE GURGLE

Voice in the corner: "Sandy, there's a funny noise coming from the vacuum pump and water leaking out of it!"
Me: "cool..."

Carry on regardless, because, as Confucius says: "There's no point rebuilding a vacuum pump until it stops completely unless..." ...I forget.

Drain off the horrible, boiling, waxy liquid... Damn... Into the bucket...

Repeat until you can take no more, 3 or 4 jugs-worth should do it.

Disassmeble the machine, dry out THOROUGHLY and leave the vacuum pump running until it a) it stops as mentioned previously or b) stops making that "kitten drowning" sound...

Fill the wax chamber again, screw the lid back on and leave the wax to melt a bit - an hour or so.

This gives you time to run your glasses through the ultra-sonic cleaner and a quick de-wax cycle in the kiln, pick all the wax from you boiler suit, shoes, arm-hair and eyebrows and sweep up the devastation left in you wake over the past hour-and-a-half.

Run a couple of rubber moulds through the system to make sure that you have everything connected up properly (prepare to spend half an hour cleaning up again as the the excess water/hot wax mix is tricky to remove from vulcanised rubber not to mention you hair....)

One the hateful machine stops spitting gloop and boiling water at you it's time for a cup of tea and some reflection on your inability to read you own notes from last time.

Then repeat with the other machine....

Your turn next!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

The site is ALMOST up to date!

2010-08-17T09:11:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a while since good old Wallis Hunter dot com has been mentioned and I thought a wee explanantion of what's been going on was in order.

First up, the Home page has been updated with some pretty jolly looking pics of six of our ranges, as follows:

Gemset Rings

Triple Rings

Our brand new fashion jewellery: Rowan

Our classic Charles Rennie Mackintosh Jewellery

Our classy Silver Kilt Pins

and our Silver and Gold Celtic Rings (including our rotating rings!)

Also, as you'll see, we've had a good experiment with getting a nice white background and I think the results have come up trumps! It's like we're Pro's or something! ;)

The new Rowan fashion jewellery range is going down a treat, as are the stacking rings, we're also putting the finishing touches to some gold stacking rings, which won't be available on the site unfortunately as they're a limited run for the shop. Instead of Dark Rhodium plating and gilding, we've made them from Red (rose) gold, White gold and Yellow gold. I'll see if we can get a pic up on here as soon as they're done, because they really do look pretty special!

Anyway, I'd best go boil the kettle as it's nearly ten o'clock and there'll be complaints if the tea isn't made! Who knows, I may even go and make some jewellery...

Take care!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-08-12T14:25:00.002+01:00

In between running his jewellery workshop, Mike has decided to add a new room to their adjoining house. The house is single story and very low, so the new room should allow lots of extra space, and views of the sea.

He was determined to do this job himself, so apart from some heavy lifting help from various handy neighbours ( and workers, thank-you Sandy and Trish) he just plugs away on his own doing a 7a.m. - 10a.m. slot in the mornings, plus evenings and week-ends.

Then it's into the workshop for a merry day filing and setting, and chatting to the many visitors who are around at this time of year.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-06-24T09:23:00.002+01:00

Well, Minnie was determined to lay an egg in the shop today and we couldn't keep her out. She was on the work benches, trying to help with packing orders, and eventually we had to banish her to the casting shop where she did lay her egg. Alas, not golden.

The place is a bit of a zoo, with two dogs milling around trying to get attention from our customers. Ginnie the collie could have been sold 100 times over! The new thug just scares people which is a lot more useful

So as well as producing loads of super jewellery for ourselves and others, we run a most convivial workshop!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Jewellery

2010-06-15T09:00:00.004+01:00

Our Mackintosh Collection is back!

We've added our classic Charles Rennie Mackintosh, silver jewellery to the site. It's all been re-vamped for the 21st century and is looking absolutely superb.

We first started making Mackintosh jewellery a loooong time ago and since then it's popularity has waxed and waned a little but recently there seems to have been a surge in interest in Mackintosh design. Who can say why? Is it a shift in public concious? A new generation, yet to be titilated by Charles Rennie's stunning design? Or perhaps it's just one of "those things".

Whatever the reason, we're glad to see it back on Wallis Hunter Jewellery - it's been missed.

The piece above: Mackintosh Inverted Rose Pendant (#312p) retails at £45.60

This handsome piece is the classic CRM Circle brooch (#178b) - it's also available as a pendant and with some nice red garnets instead of the lovely cabochon amethysts - we can even make it in gold! :)

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Presenting: The Rowan Collection!

2010-06-01T09:16:00.006+01:00

We've almost got the website completely updated with nice new pics and a new range (well, technically two...) Here are a few of my favourites in sterling silver:

The Tulip Pendant with two Cubic Zirconia

Triple Hearts pendant

Hooks with stones (specifically green aventurine!)

and finally some of our new silver stacking rings

This is a VERY small selection of the new jewellery - check out the site for the entire collection and keep an eye out for our re-vamped Charles Rennie Mackintosh jewellery collection which should make it onto the site very soon.

PS - Remember that all of our jewellery is made from start to finish here on the West Coast of Scotland - no sub-manufacturing! We're pretty rare y'know... :)

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-04-21T20:39:00.004+01:00

Well, it's that time again; off to the Aviemore Trade Fair on Saturday. We've been up to the Aviemore Trade Fair in it's various guises since 1976!! So we have a certain nostalgia for the old place. It used to be in late October with the first snow on the hills - and this year it's the last snow on the hills; though they are forecasting the odd mountain shower for the week-end.

Staying with our old friend Norman Grant who has just managed to dig his Porsche out of the snowdrifts, and then has got stuck down south waiting for his family to fly (?) back from their ski-ing holiday; clearly they weren't among the bold people who hired rowing boats at Calais and rowed back to Aberdeen.

Show should be good; it's a delightfully small and informal affair and we always enjoy it and a nice trip out for all you buyers. For some reason we have had a hugely creative spell in the workshop and have a complete new range to show you, more in keeping with the light bright mixture maxture of todays jewellery. Selling light hot cakes in our own wee Gold Foundry. And of course we have the old stand-by kilt pins ( with a few nice new ones if you weren't at the SECC). Remember Peter will always happily pop in and show you the range if you can't come and see us.

Our silver heart is a lot cleverer than it looks! How do you get that nice textury imprinty effect? took Mike and Sandy quite a lot of experimenting, and some nasty expletives deleted on Sandy's part.

New dog is settling in brilliantly; he has mastered the spiral staircase so we have high hopes for him on the mountains. Sadly he has a wooden spoon fetish so I'll be off to the kitchen shop in Inverness at the week-end.

Hope to renew old aquaintances and make some new ones.

Enjoy all the wonderful new pieces now on the site.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

You should see the new Gear!!!!

2010-04-14T20:31:00.002+01:00

I seem to have spent the whole of this year on new designs. We think they are good. Not too way out, very different to anything we have done before. Peter has most of them out on the road now and it will be very interesting what you think. I,ll start photographing them tomorrow and Sandy(bless him) will have them on the web in no time.
The casting side is doing a dinnger. Never stopped for the last month. Bit of a cash flow pain. But a small word of praise for RBS - they have kept of our back and helped all they can. THANKS.
The Shop looks Bloody wonderful. We know when we have got it right beause people stay in longer, simple. Most gangs stay in for about 2 hours, usualy when its raining..mmmm.
Hopefully we should start on the house extension in the next couple of weeks. So it's not going to rain for the next 3 months.
Really looking forward to staying with Norman Grant when we are at the Aviemore Trade Fair.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Easter Bunnies

2010-04-06T09:54:00.002+01:00

While Carradale was under siege by the Bunny Hunters yesterday, we've had our own sightings...

Slightly more exciting than bunnies - we caught sight of a Female Otter AND a Hen Harrier! Pretty exciting really! Most exciting of all though, Mr. McUgly can "do the stairs"! Yep, he's bettered Ginny and can climb and descend the stairs to the office so he's constantly cosy!

Right, jewellery time! See you soon!

PS - We've still got 15% off almost everything here in the Carradale Gold Foundry until tomorrow (Wednesday 7th April.) Adios!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Please Welcome...

2010-03-30T09:51:00.003+01:00

...our new member of staff!

This is Dexter McUgly! He joined us on Sunday and he's really, really, REALLY nice!

He came to us via Argyll Animal Aid which is a fantastic orginisation. He's a 4 year old Staffie Cross. Thankfully he's been crossed with something lovely so he's just super and only JUST deserving of his name...

Still running around like headless chickens in the workshop - so no complaints! Still beavering away on the new stuff. Whee!

Speak soon,

Us lot!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

It's all here in Carradale

2010-03-23T10:49:00.004Z

Well! What a hive of activity The Carradale Gold Foundry is!

We've got orders coming in for kilt pins, casting and lots of other bits and now that the new cottage site is up and running we've got bookings coming in at a "wild rate of knots" as is said here in Kintyre!

We're also gearing up for the Aviemore Trade Show which runs from the 25th - 27th of April. We're going to be showing there for the duration at stand H35 so if you're in the trade (any trade!) you can click here and register for your free entry to the show.

It's a great wee show and we love it. You'll see some of the finest Scottish Designers and Makers around and there's always great yarns to be had too!

The new designs are coming along too and they'll be popping up on the website very soon - they're pretty exciting and something a bit new. More updates on these as the weeks go by.

That's it for now, better go and get fettling/wrestling with some silver!

Take care,
Us lot!

PS - Here's a sneak peek of the kind of thing that's going to be arriving on our pricelists very soon:

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-03-10T19:27:00.002Z

A quick visit to town today to see the optometrist. Eyesight is just so important in our work, and although we are up to all the tricks with glasses and magnifiers and 10x loupes we don't like to take any chances. And now our holiday cottages are getting going for the season, we took the chance to stock up! And buy a new wheelbarrow. It' a shame Mike made me push it all the way home.

As an aside to the jewellery we have just opened a nice new website for our cottages with on-line booking and we are just thrilled with the response. So the next ploy must be to bring this jewellery web site up to date. We have loads of new designs just off the drawing board so we'll get them photographed and on site as soon as possible. You will be delighted when you see them - light and very modern but, hopefully, with our own special touch.

The shop too is suddenly getting busy after the fearful winter, but recent gorgeous days get people out and about - we even spotted some primroses today, a sure sign of SPring at last.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-02-22T09:24:00.002Z

Guess what's behind the doors??

You may think it's strange to have doors and no walls, but thanks to the weather the Forestry Commission are limiting access to the forests and our wood suppliers are unable to come up with the smart geen pine we are planning to make walls of. But the doors do look good don't they?

However, despite the winter our doughty agent Peter Burrell has struggled through the snow of the north-east and visited various shivering customers who report good business and have been happy to give us some nice healthy orders . Thank you.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-02-12T08:57:00.002Z

Well, bad news I'm afraid. We had a visit from Mr Fox on Wednesday night and though we thought Minnie and Rhoda were safe tucked into the wood pile, they weren't. The flighty Minnie made good her escape but alas Rhoda didn't. We'll miss her gentle clucking.

A rude awakening to country life after hurtling around the great conurbations of the West Midlands in our pursuit of making the business even better. Yes, a visit to the NEC in Birmingham to the Spring Fair was a very useful ploy. Few of you probably realise that our final presented piece of jewellery is made up of lots of components - bullion, chains, little catches, boxes - and sourcing the best of these at the best of prices is an on-going task. Look out for very smart new kilt pin boxes ( well, in a wee while as boxes are now made in China and take 12 weeks to arrive), better catches etc etc. We were also pleased to see that China can no longer compete with us on prices as it used to do. What goes around comes around. So buy British!

And we were also buying for the Gold Foundry which means that this summer we will have lots of new and fresh pieces of jewellery at a big range of prices, new cards, new tankards etc etc. Always changing, although there are a few old favourite returning as well.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-02-05T09:04:00.005Z

In the next few days we're off to the Spring Fair in Birmingham to see suppliers and buy stuff for the coming season in the shop.

It's an enormous thing with halls and halls - all the size of the SECC - and if you need to visit more than about 2 of them it can take you 5 days of plodding. We tend to restrict ourselves to the jewellery halls and see both our supppliers - chains, machinery, bullion, that sort of thing - as well as actual jewellery and other nice bits and pieces for you to admire in the Gold Foundry - and hopefully buy! - in the coming year.

Visiting a few major customers as well so it will be a hectic few days, but a wee change from Carradale.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

January - the most hectic time of the year

2010-01-19T20:38:00.002Z

So, you just get over Christmas and new year and straight into the time of the year when we do a little planning and thinking about new year. Glasgow Trade Fair is our next big push. Five new Kilt pins, a lot of studs (for the ear- fool) and a collection of pendants. My problem is WHAT to design. Carradale is not the centre is trend and there are not lots of trend conscious merket leaders to ogle or chat to.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2010-01-16T10:23:00.002Z

During the cold weather the snooty hens were allowed to move into the garage; here is Minnie taking an interest in the vice. They were in the casting shop which is really cosy, but roosting in the casting machine seemed a bit much - something about the hens that lay the golden eggs?

Now all is back to normal and it's all hands on deck getting ready for Scotland's Trade Fair in the SECC next week. However much we plan ahead, new designs, new price lists etc are all left until the very last minute.

Cunningly we use the evenings when we are up there to go to Celtic Connections concerts; a great array this year and we are starting with The Treacherous Orchstra on the Saturday night which sounds interesting.

Then it's a trip down to the NEC a fortnight later for the Spring Fair where we get a chance to meet customers and suppliers, see new products, and buy stuff for the shop.

Anyway , it's the week-end and at the moment we're closed on Saturdays so Mike is getting down to creating a garage for Green Archie who did not like being outside in the snow. But he still started, although I felt he was too precious to do wheelies in the Village Hall car park which occupied most people over the holiday.

And the bulbs are coming through

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Happy 2010!

2010-01-12T09:37:00.002Z

And Happy it is. The ice is receding and the water has come back on in my house - and with NO burst pipes (thus far...)

The workshop is buzzing. There are castings going left right and centre, new orders to fulfill. Mike mentioned the "Scotland's Spring Trade Fair" which is fast approaching. 24th - 26th January no less! I'm not sure how the end of January equates to "Spring" but what do I know!

If you're interested in seeing us at the show, we're at stand E78 and we've even got our own wee corner on their site! Nip over to their page for details on how to come along - it's a great show.

Better get off now, there are flasks waiting for me in the Kilns and Masters to make!

Take care!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Just a bit like winter.......

2010-01-07T19:26:00.001Z

We always seem to have quite a long break over Christmas and New Year - reason - the rest of the gang have weeks of holidays left. Seems better working at WH than having a holiday - my foot. The Exodus trekking brouchure came in today. Please sir can I have three months holiday.
Have those of you who watch the weather noticed that here in Carradale it does not snow. Well just a teeny weeny bit, but then it rained and froze again leaving all the vulnerable bits with a three inch ice scim. Crampy things or nothing. And to prove it our Lindsey in the workshop lost her legs whilst looking after son Scott and broke her wrist. Try making jewellery with one hand.
But you all should be here right now, it's fantastic. But don't come down the back road, we did, coming home from Inverness. Made it half way down and had to turn back and go via Campbeltown - what a pain. Not a drop of grit from Argyll and Bute. But how can they. Millions spent on a new Police Station and millions on a new Dentists at the hospital and you haven't been able to drive on the roads for the last ten days. Priorities.
We are all up to our knees with new designs in preparation for the new season which starts in Glasgow with the Scottish Gift Show, a very good trade venue for the shops to see our stuff. Four or five new Kilt pins, a lot of new entries in our basics set, pendants, ears and brooches. A new collection this spring is the Triple Ring Collection - three, wear together rings some in mixed metals. We are quite excited.
So, busy times. And a building job to finish. If you have a few free days come and help.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL. I try so hard to remember. Wonderful to hear you.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-12-21T09:49:00.002Z

Merry Christmas everyone

This is what Carradale Bay Looked like yesterday. Just glorious.

And don't forget, we're closed from Christmas Eve until 6th January.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

First taste of Turkey

2009-12-16T09:36:00.008Z

It's creeping up on us you know...

Kilt pins are still flying out the door, new jewellery design masters are being made, waxes are being lost and cast and we don't know if we're on our bums or the joint between our shoulder and wrist. Ooh, cryptic.

Looking forward to getting some new jewellery designs into the set. We're all having a go at model-making and coming up with some pretty super stuff.

A small note on the shop: We're going to be open here in Carradale right up until 5pm on Christmas eve (-ish, Mike's usually around a bit later and if you find yourself in that all too familiar situation at 4.45 on the 24th December, give us a call (01583 431683) and I'm sure we can accommodate a late visit!)

This is turning into a pretty big "small note"... We'll be away until Wednesday 6th January 2010 so feel free to come and wish us a happy new year and spend some of your Christmas Pennies!

Web orders are still fine but there may be a small, wine-induced delay in sending stuff out after Christmas eve and if you find yourself worried about getting stuff on time, we can send your order via Special Delivery on request and should be good up until around the start of the Christmas week.

Now... I've been thinking about putting together a bit of a step-by-step introduction (I won't say tutorial!) to lost wax casting so you can get a feel for how it is we do what we do. In the meantime, here's a piccy of the Jewellery Workshop...

Well, I think that's enough bloggering for now. I'm off to make some more flowery, silver rings and even more importantly - a cup of coffee!

Take care and speak soon.
:)

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-12-01T14:27:00.002Z

Right, just ignore all the enticing offers that Sandy spent hours this morning adding to our web site; the 15% discounts, the gold 'Star' bangle ( a real special), the wonderful little pendant sets.

Concentrate instead on the important things of life. THE LOGS HAVE ARRIVED.

Last seen in a messy pile in the middle of the forest, they are now neatly stacked up in our back yard and will provide 4 years worth of heat for our house and the cottages.

Sadly the driver was so quick and effecient that, unlike last time when we held all the traffic up, killed the rose and demolished the fence, I was unable to get any photos of him perched up on his crane swinging them into place because by the time I remembered how to work the camera they were all in situ. But anyway here they are and if you , too, have a bit of space, a saw, and a stove, then they are a fine investment.

Walked from Skipness to Tarbert - and back - on Sunday. Its a super path and part of the Kintyre Way. If you are holidaying down here, preferrably in one of our super cottages, the Kintyre Way is a walk that can be done in bits and pieces . Each section is unique in it's own right with all sorts of wonderful views, and the sea always around somewhere. With a little help from your friends it is easy to do the whole walk in a week, using only one base. Well worth thinking about.

Keep your eye on the site because we are chopping and changing our offers all the time. And if you are in a hurry for something just e-mail or ring to check on availability.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Back to jewellery...

2009-11-24T09:20:00.007Z

Sorry to be a bore, but I thought I should let you know that we're currently busy working on some new designs for next season but in the mean time I've added some Gold Pendant/ear stud sets to the website at a seriously tempting Christmasy Price.

The sets all come in display boxes and the pendants sit on 9ct Yellow 16" fine chains and the studs have 9ct butterflies so it's a good way to win some brownie points this Christmas.

In other news I've also added some silver kiltpins to eBay at the usual silly discounted prices (shh!)

Plus Trish has put up a rather attractive set of antique silver coffee spoons! They were made by Brook and Son (Edinburgh) and hallmarked in 1926. There's only a couple of days left on them at the time of writing this so go and grab them while you can! They really are pretty special.

Keep checking our jewellery site , kilt pin site and back here at the blog for all the exciting updates! :S

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-11-23T16:01:00.005Z

What ghastly weather but then again it is November; I judge a good summer on the number of times I go in swimming (5 last summer, well below average) and a good November on the number of times I can get into the garden. Twice this November, probably average.

So what better to do than to spend the week-end plastic-ing (sic) the workshop floor. Most of it had been done before, but there was a large chunk of ancient cement under the work benches which was just the place to lose diamonds, gold ear studs, sprues etc etc. So we look forward to a huge rise in profits now that we don't actually lose half our stock. Making jewellery is an unbelievably dirty job , despite the fact that we collect as much of our dust as we can seeing as how it's full of wee bits of silver , and this was a great excuse to give the whole place a thorough going over.

It's a ghastly job involving primers and top coats and lethal mixtures of different components which are all stirred together like mad ( me and the Stanley drill) then shoved on the floor as quickly as possible (Mike). All went pretty well apart from a few bubbles, and (sadly for the gang who had been hoping for the morning off) it was dry enough to walk on this morning. So our work will just be better and cleaner than ever.

And the Monday morning cleaner (me) will have a much pleasanter job!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Well on top of things

2009-11-18T20:24:00.002Z

Surely the aim of every manufacturer is to dispatch orders instantly. In thirty five years in the buiss I've rarely cracked it - but sometimes we do. And today is one of them, well almost.
Don't worry it cannot last!
And what about the weather. We seem to be catching the lot at the moment. The fields in front of the house always seems to be flooded - poor sheep and cows. It's the sad time of the year when you walk the dog in the dark, spend the day at work in the 'light', and walk the dog at the end of the day in the dark..
Starting to work on the new designs for the Spring show in Glasgow. A few more Kilt Pins (and a few of the less catchy ones out), New pendants and ears, looking good at the moment. loads of work to do. We thought CAD CAM would be helping us by now but the problems seem never ending and there is little doubt it is better value to make masters by hand. But not totally lost faith and we will have another crack at it soon.
Cricky, it's time for Spooks!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-11-11T09:23:00.002Z

This is our log supply for the next 4 years. Forest Enterprise sell odd piles of logs from round and about for a very reasonable price; they get delivered to the back yard ( a very complicated business involving holding up the traffice, demolishing fences and killing my favourite rose ,Dublin Bay, ) but it's worth it. Keeps Mike busy sawing and chopping, keeps the house and the cottages cosy, and of course helps dry the clothes on the pulley.

We went and admired our logs on a splendid frosty morning last week-end with cracking views of Arran and discovered yet another new forest road for walks.

Today they should be delivered - more dramatic, and hopefully less blurry, photos to follow!

Got some nice offers on our web pages for Christmas, so do be tempted. The price of gold whizzes up by the hour but these prices are fixed till Christmas, so good value.

Seems that yet again they are muttering about opening the gold mine at Tyndrum. There is no doubt that there is plenty of gold in them thar hills - our panning instructor from the Leadhills says he's very successful up there - so perhaps we will be making rings from Argyll gold in the near future.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-11-04T10:54:00.006Z

GRANTS FOR PULLEYS!!!

When Heather the Weather gaily says there will be showers, what she really means at the moment is that there will monsoon- like downpours interspersed with very noisy hail. The glen is sodden, everyone's rooves are leaking, and we are having such a job getting the cottage sheets dry (6 changeovers in the last 10 days).

So - three cheers for the pulley. Put in when we installed our fabulous , clean, wood-burning stove it is our saviour and EVERYONE should have one. If the Government were really serious about this global warming nonsense they would supply them free. Sandy's eccentric parents have theirs on the upstairs landing. GRANTS FOR PULLEYS is to be my campaign for 2010.

Claud (my new bike) and I had a damp wee trip up the glen before work to check out the new electricity sub-station. More expense to get expensive power from expensive subsidised wind farms when with all this rain we could each have our own hydro scheme. Anyway, we noticed that the ring ouzels that were here last week, and who always flock in at this time of year, have migrated south and all we saw was a nice little tree creeper.

After 28 years of my trusty Falcon tourer I have a very ambiguous relationship with Claud, No his chain doesn't fall off when the wood lorries go by, and his gears aren't stuck in second, and he looks gorgeous. But I am very loyal and I look at my last nameless bike left alone in the shed and feel really really mean. Perhaps we'll have an official wake.

Busy now organising a super OFFER for those who have bought on our internet site over the last few months. So buy something quickly and you can get the next bitty 15% off.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-10-30T20:25:00.005Z

Well, Mike spent a good hour last night writing you all a wonderful newsy blog and, guess what? Yes, it evaporated into the ether. So if you find it tucked in among your e-mails please please post it. it would make him very happy.

Got our hugest order ever off on Thursday; living down here, couriers aren't a serious option so we have to depend on the post which is USUALLY superb. However this latest erratic strike arrangement is very hard on wee businesses like ourselves. We are doing our best using Special delivery, e-mail and BACS and inevitably will not revert back in the future if we can avoid it. Shooting yourselves in the foot or what? And what do you do when customers say they haven't got goods because of the strike, and you have proof you sent them? Lose money or lose the customer. Certainly don't expect the Post Office to find the parcel for you.

English school holidays still and all the cottages full; poor souls, the weather was ghastly. Two attempts to visit the relations on Arran were thwarted as the ferry was off, and now it's stopped for the season. However everyone was very brave and said they were having a wonderful time. The gang at work are revving up for Hallowe'en and a big fancy dress party up at the Hotel so lets hope the rain and gales forecast aren't too bad.

Green Archie's rocker switch for the lights has gone wonky - it just never ends!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-10-29T19:16:00.003Z

A splendid week away down in Oxfordshire on a Canal Boat.Done boats many times before, such a contrast to West Coast life. Went down the Thames to Abingdon, what a treat. Would you belive it but it was all so peaceful and tranquil. Last night in Blackpool - don't ask! My idea and I would not have missed it for the world, but not that tempted back.
And back to Wallis Hunter on Monday morning. The gang, as ever, have been terrific. Sandy even cleaned his bench. Thanks all of you.
The shop has died, earlier than last year. Bit of a shame because it looks so good. Strange how different ranges go at different times of the year. The higher metal prices don't seem to detract. We always try to keep prices as low as possible on the grounds that visitors will only be in once. If they go away without a fair deal they sure will not be back next week.
Glasgow museums have a range of McIntosh Jewellery. We claim to be the last of the original producers still in production? Still, it is Scottish produced McIntosh. But good effort by them as we do seem to be selling quite a lot.
And do I hear that it looks as though bits of RBS are to be palmed of under EU competition rules. Well it would look bloody great if Campbeltown branch were included and it went to Tesco. After all these years in our love hate relationship I would have to move. I hate Tesco so much.
And YES we do need the fish farm in Carradale if we have a cat in hells chance of keeping jobs here and not letting Carradale become a retirement home.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :

2009-10-07T14:50:00.002+01:00

Ah, the saga of the washing machine. After we waited 10 days for the 'engineer' to arrive from Tarbert - via Crianlarich because a landslide had blocked the road - he told us he could find nothing wrong but would change a few critical bits anyway, and off he went.

It still didn't work properly.

Another half hour press button 1,2,3 etc call to Hotpoint who said they would send a new machine.

Which arrived another 10 days later

So here is Trolley doing it's bit, removing the old new machine before the new new machine is fitted.

....and it works!

Anything to make our holiday cottages that bit better.

And we are working on a super new web site for the cottages; Sandy has been taking photos, and Steve is planning the site, and Mike has been giving sound advice. Book on line and all the modern gizmos, you just won't be able to resist a short break in Carradale

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Pictures of Colonsay (at last...)!

2009-09-29T09:00:00.012+01:00

So as to claw back at least a little of my my tattered reputation, here are a couple of pics from our Grand Day Out. The first is an extremely flattering pic of "the team" (minus myself, no bad thing I'm assured...) This was out on the rather pleasant stern-ward deck of the Hebridean Isles.

Next up is a pic of Kiloran Bay. This is where we had our rather yummy picnic (and a glass or three of wine.) We were sat on the outcrop two thirds along the bay quite happily before Mr Hurst, in his infinite, goaty wisdom said "let's go to the top of that hill!"

"That nountain you mean?" says I but keen not to be outdone, we followed suit! 20minutes later this was the resulting view. As are the next two pics...

This is a view from the top of Colonsays only mountain (at 480ft I'm quite sure Mr Munroe would have something to say about that...)

Looking south we could see the Paps of Jura and a good chunk of the mainland and to the North:

Benmor on the Isle of Mull and the machair of the north end of Colonsay. I'll put an extra, zoomed, version of this below so you can see the only whale we saw all day...

Good, isn't it? Some clever soul must have spent a good while laying out the stones. To give you idea of scale, the white dots in the field are sheep!

Thanks for now, speak soon!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

We love big orders but....

2009-09-24T19:48:00.005+01:00

And I'm not sure what Trish had in mind by a little wine in Colonsay- I had to carry it and I promise you it was not a wee glass each. But no empties to return!
Don't know weather we are on our head or heels. The casting is as busy as ever with some good long runs, means we get better quality which we all strive for. Lost wax casting is not quite as easy as it looks. a lots of science yes but experience, trials and talk go for better results. One or two things still worry us but I,ll not tell you what they are or John Hart will spend weeks devising a product that contains all the problems. Yes you will.
We got a wonderful order the other day from a major mens wear group for kilt pins and kuff links. Of the size we haven't seen since CRM days. Life in the old dogs yet. But manufacturing is a function of time and a big order is a long slog if we maintain our high standards of finish. Even Trish has forsaken the computer to work on the bench and she is Knackered by the end of the day!
Did any of you see the program on the Monroe Mountains the other night? of course we missed it fools we are. But Brian Gee said we must watch it. So, onto iPlayer and up it comes. Wonderful program. But two things stand out. First how brave I was climbing the InPin on Skye (looks MUCH worse than it is). And second one of life's wee treats. About six years ago Trish and I were walking in Glen Coe and we met and had lunch this wonderful Gentleman who was just getting into Hill Walking. WE sat for a long time chatting looking over Glen Ettive, exchanged emails and parted. We kept in touch for quite a while but you know how it is and we lost touch. Well if this fantastic fellow was not one of the focal points of the Monroe program filmed completing all the Monroes. So, yes we are back in touch and we intend to meet up with Douglas Greive as soon as we can. Congratulations you wonderful man.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-09-23T10:55:00.003+01:00

Fooled you again! This is the works outing to Colonsay. No it isn't, it's actually Mike and friends in the Andes. It's SUPPOSED to be the works outing to Colonsay but ace photographer Sandy will forget to bring in the camera with the photos on it.

We all had a brilliant day last Wednesday when we shut shop, packed a fancy picnic and some wine, and headed off on the CalMac boat to the delicious island of Colonsay. Trip takes nearly 4 hours but with the help of Cal Mac bacon rolls, and amused by Ginny introducing herself to all the passengers , we survived. Once there a 3 mile walk to Kiloran beach - reputedly the Queen's favourite - where we lay in the sun, climbed little hills, and just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Trundled back to the hotel where we tried out the Colonsay IPA, and then sailed back home in the setting sun.

So that's how the workers of Wallis Hunter enjoy themselves after all their hard work churning out goodies for you all.

Real photos may appear some time.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-09-01T11:37:00.002+01:00

The Wallis Hunter classic trolley has been doing a bit of community service round the village, transferring Brian and Audrey's new oven into their kitchen. As they are tremendous cooks we look forward to sampling the results.

'Makes a change from nitrogen cyclinders and bags of plaster!'

Our last batch of plaster was 10 days arriving; part for our broken waxing machine has STILL not arrived, and the new washing machine for the holiday cottages took 10 days to arrive and doesn't work. After 10 minutes waiting to get through to Hotpoint we were told an engineer would be here a week on Thursday.

Just hope Wallis Hunter tries to be a bit more effecient.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-08-25T09:27:00.005+01:00

Do I look smug?

Do I look VERY smug?

You've got it in one -

I've passed my MOT !!!!!!

So we're off on the wide open road........................................................................

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Well, have you seen the weather forcast...

2009-08-19T20:19:00.002+01:00

It just seems to be a train of Atlantic fronts hitting the west coast, day after day. Rain then showers over and over again. But note. Did you watch Kintyre? Just a little spot with less rain than most reinforcing the fact our summer has, infact, been better than average. So just come and see us.
One of the poor old wax injectors has decided it needs a holiday and has gone bust. New part - 10 days. Spit. So, to spite it I bought another for standby use. We just cant afford to be without, they seem to work 7 hours a day. But even second hand it would make you weak!
Great visitirs in the shop. Good chat, looking at jewellery that we like. Since we put the new Kling ring case in place for silver rings we can hardly keep up with production. Catherine does a great job in the shop, always sparkling and well stocked, well done.
But everyone, please stop talking about the weather.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Right then......

2009-08-10T20:05:00.001+01:00

We saw a whale on Sunday. Walked out to Carradale Point and sat for a while. Out towards the Cruban Bouy, clear as day a whale. A good few years since I've seen one so quite a treat. Great excitement in the village over the weekend, opening of the new Golf Club Club house. A wonderful achievement, all credit to the Club. It did mean a very quiet day in the shop on Saturday so we missed our Target which we all hate doing.
Caths 60th birthday went well. An occasion like that must not go uncelebrated. So we did. Closed the shop and went to the hotel for a splendid lunch and loads to drink and very silly chat. Thanks to the Hotel for all your work and willing help. And no, Cath is not going to retire - maybe the least to say but very powerful!
The vacuum injectors use a vacuum pump. They are a bit noisy at a pitch which makes conversation difficult. So we had an air powered pump made up that does the same job but with a nice quiet hiss. First class. More hats of to Duncan Rogers Engineers.
Went down to the Harbour tonight to empty the bottles into the bottle bank ( a very satisfactory job) . Had a good chat with Bruce Oman, not a common occurrence, He is away on the fishing boat all day. The Harbour and the Sound looked wonderful. World Class stuff (to quote Penny and Brian) If you have never been to Carradale it's time you did.
As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-07-29T19:04:00.006+01:00

Yes, the moment you've all been waiting for, heeeeereeee's Archie! Doesn't he look magnificent?

Unfortunately I'm inclined to feel he's far too good to be drive. He might get dirty! But I'm sure you'll be seeing me around if you happen to be in Carradale. Unfortunately the grovelly Ginny doesn't like being in the front seat with me - unlikely my other trusty hounds who would put their paws on the top of the windscreen and let their ears blow with the wind in a sort of ' Wind in the Willows' take-off.

Enough of M.G. Midgets, that's behind us now and time to move on to something else.

But what?

Carradale is at it's peak this week and the next, when all the school holidays seem to coincide, and of course we are getting far better weather than the rest of the country.

Last week's Clan Gathering in Edinburgh seemed to be a huge success; we rushed some kilt pins to the Scottish Parliament shop, and they were delighted to let us know they had sold them, so no doubt they will be winging their way back to Australia or Dubai where most of our Clan chiefs seem to live these days. Should residency in Scotland not be a pre-requisite for being a Clan Chief? Surely. We also make their own specially designed pin for the Parliament shop, and Mike is working on a rather complicated pendant that ties in with one of their specially commissioned sculptures.

time to go and water the tomatoes.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Beasties and CADCAM!

2009-07-28T11:35:00.003+01:00

Well, we're all pretty seriously busy still, no surprise there! Well, perhaps a little...

We've shipped out a few more bargains buy on eBay today :D and more to go up soon!

The mist has descended upon Carradale this morning and with it a swarm of daddy-long-legs! Well, there was in my house last night. For whatever reason, I've been on beastie watch all summer. The best sighting being an up-turned Violet Ground Beetle in my kitchen one morning last week. He (she?) was still alive and kicking so onto a sheet of paper and into the garden it went!

In the workshop this week I've been having a go at Delcam Jewelsmith again. Trying to add more detail to Celtic Designs and at the same time learning how to make balanced patterns that don't look like they were built on a computer, tricky!

The most important tool I've found so far is George Bain's EXCELLENT book on Celtic Design, it truly is THE bible for the field. If you want to learn how it works, get a copy (or wait to see my design when they get onto the jewellery site! ;) )

Off to sort our eBay and make some rings. Speak soon!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Tuesday - Off to see the MSP

2009-07-20T20:36:00.002+01:00

Now, can you see how any industrialised country (and surely Scotland is) can survive without industry? If we don't convert raw materials into something of use to us all how do we make money to pay for the services we all seem to crave for. Maybe I'm old fashioned and am missing the point of our 'today' life but services don't seem to fit the bill. So' tomorrow, Trish and I are of to ask our MSP, Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise and sometime accountant if I am totally out of touch. And to get clear in our minds what our Government are doing to support manufacturing industry. Well, we have been making jewellery for 35 years and made some small contribution to Government coffers.
And also, Mr Mather, is it right that we should have to fork out £2000 to get connected to Scottish Water just because your lot say we must? We think not. Nothing wrong with the water we have, of the hill. With no Carbon Foot print. Not like Corporation Lemonade.
Everything going like a fair at the moment. Kilt pins still top priority.
And Cath is 60 on Friday.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-07-14T19:37:00.004+01:00

Sorry, but I'm afraid we're dealing with a seriously disfunctional trolley. It refuses to leave the page and make room for Green Archie until I show you its nice new slicks; this will seriously speed up the movement of gas cylinders around the courtyard and add to the effeciency of our casting workshop.

Green Archie soon.......................... but I'll let Mike or Sandy bring you up to date with the more serious workshop events first

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-07-09T08:54:00.002+01:00

Ha! fooled you. You thought you were going to see wonderful pictures of Green Archie with his new metallic British Racing Green coat glittering in the summer sunshine. No way! Yes, he's home and fabulous but until the new second hand front bumper arrives from Wales, he refuses to be photographed.
Instead you are getting a picture of Mikes Classic Drayman's Trolley which has also been recently refurbished. This amazing trolley still does sterling work for us, trundling around the huge nitrogen cylinders that we use in our casting shop (nitrogen cover in casting reduces oxidisation of the metal , as if you didn't know). So there.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-07-06T09:07:00.003+01:00

Minnie & Rhoda remain firm friends and are passionate sun worshippers. Every morning Minnie jumps down from the wood pile, and Mike lets Rhoda out of the cat basket and they meet in the porch where they sit on the mat grumbling away until I emerge with a handful of cat food (don't ask, the blackbird's as bad sitting on the pergola hollering until he gets his rations as well ).

This family of blackbirds have been helping themselves to cat food for the last 10 years and when the cats died we hadn't the heart to stop - they might not be able to cope with worms!

Today GREEN ARCHIE is ready to come home. we went to visit him last week and he is looking quite fantastic; however as the Met office forecast is 'Be prepared' we are putting off collection until tomorrow as there is no hood on the car and we don't want to get caught in a downpour. Then it's on with the refurbished bumpers and off we go. Photos soon.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

FileZilla's In The Mist

2009-06-23T09:40:00.002+01:00

Kintyre seems to be covered in Mist! Apparently it's been lingering around Campbeltown (Davie P's great Kintyre site!) for a few days but it's finally snuck up to us this morning - doesn't look like it wants to hang around though - I see blue sky!

Just spent the monthly hour trying to figure out how to get the site for our cottages updated and uploaded. As usual, the notes I made about getting it uploaded don't correspond to anything that I can see, gave up and chose a new program (fileZilla.) It's great AND free AND the site is back up.

Time to make some jewellery I suspect, got another massive pile of rings to make and also a couple of things from eBay to post out - ain't life grand!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

MONDAY MORNING

2009-06-22T19:14:00.002+01:00

Well,actually it's Monday night. A good day. Met some smashing people in the shop, one or two with a lot of Carradale history - wish I could remember all their names.
And, at long last, met our new RBS new Bank Manager. Derick Shand retired though we all remain firm palls and Derick Stewart takes his place. I shall remain a little twitchy for a while till we got the length of him. I'm sure thats mutual. You know about policemen looking young....
Gold rings seem to be our best seller in the shop. The price seems so steep compared to the last few years. We will not go back to the old prices so get used to it! The pricing of gold is so hard to predict. Originally priced in Dollars an ounce we purchase in Pounds per gram. It seems to me you have to be a very smarty keep tabs. But the rings are still wonderful.
Went to see where the Beavers were released in Mid Argyll. What a wonderful place. Fancy letting go animals that are nocturnal! NO chance of seeing them but goodness what a wonderful place. And Roger we still love you.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

JUST ANOTHER DAY...

2009-06-15T20:30:00.004+01:00

So, the reversing lights on the Passat never seemed to work. Last Wednesday Trish and I went to Glasgow : thought : get garage to fix light. No problem said Mr Clarks little man, two hours. Off to the Botanics. Never been and three hours shot by, just a great place to be. Well, by four o'clock still no word about the car. I phone them. Big problems, smoke out of dash board, will need to stay in the garage. Well, after four working days and a weekend I return to Glasgow to collect Passat. Work done - A new reversing light. On warranty. Now who is at it?
We all get very upset when our products are not up to scratch, be the customer trade or retail. What can we say? WE have goofed. But it happens, with all the bits that leave the workshop some don't reach the standard. But rest assured, we will rectify, no questions asked. And we are sad and sorry.
With our current record of creaking machines our last attempts at wreckage was the Magnetic polisher. Don't ask but it is very important. We think one of the magnets broke loose and sent the kit into orbit, missing Sandy by a hairs breadth ( he says) New one arrives tomorrow.
Hey ho.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-06-13T10:29:00.003+01:00

The Godfather

In April we were up at the Aviemore Trade Show, preceeded by niece Heather's wedding in Inverness. She asked Mike if he would drive her to the church so instead of rushing our filthy Passat through a carwash, we hired a Porsche and Mike drove her in style, complete with gangster gear as he is her god father.

A great day.

Unlike Mike who takes all the web site photos in studio conditions with reflecting umbrellas, light boxes, and a fancy digital camera (in a corner of the living room), I stick to tried and tested technology with the result that I use about one film a year and my photos are always somewhat out of date. Look forward to photos of the Irish trip sometime next May.....

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-06-08T14:32:00.002+01:00

For those of you who haven't met the Gold Foundry guard dog, this is Ginny. You can see how scarey she is.

Originally she came to us from Argyll Animal Aid as a minder for our arthritic old mongrel - and very good she was too, stopping him falling in the burn on walks, entertaining him in the evening with simple ball games, and eating his tea if he couldn't manage it.
She started life as a very failed sheepdog who had been touted round the farms of North Argyll and was so hopeless that she ended back with her original owner who kindly found her a simpler job.

Don't believe a word of it. Despite a wonderful pedigree Ginny had no intention of ever living in an old container in the corner of a farm yard and going out to work every day. No, early on she decided she'd rather be a pet. It took her 4 years of conniving to get there but she succeeded! She now lives in the lap of luxury, rides around on the back seat of the car, not the back box of a quad bike, has a nice Campbell tartan rug in the corner of the bedroom, and winds Mike totally round her little finger.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

FRIDAY NIGHT-AFTER A BUSY WEEK

2009-06-05T19:58:00.002+01:00

So, Wallis hunter seems to be doing something right....
All hands on overtime(though Sandy is not sure how to fit an extra hour in the day without actually being here) to try and reduce our backlog of work. But still the work piles in. A lot of Kilt pins to The Kilt Pin Company with the Plaid brooches doing better than expected.
The casting side never seems to catch up. Cath is a wonder keeping us organised. It's a very complicated logistics operation supplying twenty important manufactures with their castings - your a great bunch and we all appreciate your confidence. And thanks to all at Duncan Rogers in Hillington for finally fixing the big compressor - job done.
The shop is a lot of fun. Not that many foot falls but all of the very highest quality! Most enjoying our rather unusual way of doing business. Thanks, you are all great and appreciated.
The cottages have one or two vacancies at the moment which is a shame because Carradale is fantastic at the moment. The vegetation is at it's best - we would come down for that alone. OK you can come for two nights if you ask nicely. But the up side of vacancies is I can paint the wonderful sash windows. And that's why the Blog is not written quite as often.......

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-06-03T16:29:00.003+01:00

A quick spin into Campbeltown last week when we had time to pop in and see how Green Archie was. Well I have to say he was looking pretty naked. Right down to metal in some bits. However the good news is that some brilliant patching up and rebuilding work has been done on his body ( if it were so easy ...) and now he's all set for a glamorous new coat. We'll keep you posted.

Wonderful weather and the West Coast of Scotland at it's absolute best. Snuck off to Gigha on Monday with some very old friends (the last time Sheila and I were on Gigha together was 45 years ago) and had a delicious time though she was mildly surprised that we didn't go over in an open boat accompanied by a few calves. Why don't more people holiday in Scotland in June? It is the very best time. Completed the day with an outstanding meal at Dunvalanree. Alyson's little chocolate puddings are to die for!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-05-25T13:26:00.003+01:00

Well, it's been all go for the last week or so.

On the 14th Mike & I left at 6.30 to take the compressor to Glasgow to be fixed - having already ordered a new back-up one which had not by then arrived. We then drifted across the Irish Sea to have a few days walking in the Mountains of Mourne. So inevitably Sandy was left to fix up the back-up compressor, while we drank Guinness.

We never saw the mountains yet - awful weather. But we did end up at Malin Head which was superb. Billions of little new holiday cottages everywhere - which made us really appreciate Scotland's planning controls. On the other hand hardly a cafe or shop or anything for tourists.

Got home to discover the brilliant gang had everything up and running. but now we are behind and have so much work that we've had to go on overtime!!

Spring Bank holiday and suddenly the Gold Foundry is thronging with people - and all our holiday cottages full up.

So if you want anything get your order in quickly.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

So, So Busy!

2009-05-14T16:24:00.002+01:00

It's Thursday already! There's been quite a few people around the village this week, which is surprising but well timed by them - the rain has mostly lifted and given rise to some... SUNSHINE! (although a little "spitty" today).

Orders keep on a-flooding in and we're still sans air compressor - so haven't been able to get waxing for a few days now! (Perhaps a little "how-we-do" post on lost wax casting might be in order, the wiki article doesn't really do our style justice!)

New compressor should be here tomorrow afternoon so we'll be back in action soon! In the mean time, there's so many orders for jewellery to sort out that none of us has time to think about casting anyway!

Time to get a couple more rings made, take the signs in and start thinking about dinner...

Adios!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Wet Saturday

2009-05-09T10:20:00.002+01:00

Well I must be cheesed off. Sitting at a computer on a Saturday morning, but, as Trish said, the plan is to put new windows in the workshop. AND IT'S BLOODY WELL RAINING, hard. so an hour or two to loose.
The whole of Wallis Hunter, and life in general, seems to be run on computer. And a good thing as well, we can all do so much more in a day than we could five years ago. But they do require a big time commitment. And so does manufacturing. So some of us have to forfeit the delights of the ether to give us time to make our goodies, which is just fine because I just hate computers!
Have spent most of the week doing mends and re modeling which I quite enjoy but you do need a bit of peace and quiet. Not a commodity in excess in a production workshop. So, if you have left stuff for us to work on, with a bit of luck, I may be on it's way back to you.
Still raining, so had better find something useful to do indoors, like bake a cake

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-05-09T08:37:00.003+01:00

Well, Sandy excelled yesterday and reached the height of his art, his new innovative brownie for Friday afternoon cakes was quite superb. Hazelnuts and aero peppermint were part of the secret - he is soon to start a baking blog.

Slightly made up for he fact that he managed to crash his first effort at a cadcam ring for a customer, having spent at least an hour creating it. Most of us know by now that you save stuff as you go along...................... ; he is currently working on a range of Celtic designs so we look forward to seeing what he comes up with ; Celtic art does lend itself to cad cam with its replication and standard patterns.

Mike busy replacing the second window in the Gold Foundry; having been unable to get anyone to come and paint them for 2 years it just seemed easier to put in completely new windows. Double glazed no less so we will be nice and cosy in the winter.

New bangles going really well - this is Lynsay's area and she is fast becoming our bangle maker in chief.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

ArtCAM Jewelsmith

2009-05-07T10:35:00.005+01:00

It's about time I got to show off a 3d model or two. Below is a seriously simple pendant that I put together in Jewelsmith. The apex of the learning curve is still in the distance at the moment but seem to be getting results already.

There's a few more models I've put together which we're having "built" in wax down in Birmingham (Delcam's HQ) so should have some 3d designer jewellery up on the website very soon!

In the meantime it's time for another casting! Yellow, Red and White gold as well as some silver kilt pins to keep up with the demand from the shops we supply and our own Kilt Pin Company site.

PS - I've put a few bits up on ebay if anyone fancies a wee bid!

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Saturday, after work

2009-05-02T18:40:00.002+01:00

Well, as everyone knows we don't open on Saturday until Whit. But this morning we did for a short while to let a smashing couple ,staying in the cottages, come and design their wedding rings. Job done with a lot of hilarity but we continued with four other teams in despite a huge closed sign!! we all had a lot of fun though.
Still the machines play up. Servicing one of the wax injectors (lousy job) and the electronics went to hell. SPIT.
Stephen Walker and son called to see us last night. From the States. Knows more about Celtic Jewellery than anyone I know. Good to see him, Learned a lot.
Aviemore Trade Show had a bit of a pounding thanks to the recession. A well worth show for we true patriots, good scottish products available to good Scottish retailers. Needs a bit of SNP support, this is a show that must carry on and expand, fast.
The Chared range went well. My favorite range in the collection, different, Scottish and technically clever. New bangles still doing OK. And Lindsey can nearly make them all now, well done.
Things are going well.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-04-21T20:28:00.004+01:00

New bantams are settling in well and at last able to enjoy the sunshine.

this is Minnie who is a Minorcan;

and this is Rhoda who is a Rhode Island Red

Rhoda and Minnie are retired championship birds, and don't they know it. They are great pals, and seldom mix with the rest of the flock, but strut round together . Minnie sleeps in a tree if it's dry and under the eaves of the wood shed when its wet. Rhoda has her own exclusive suite in a corner of the garden. The rest of them bundle into the hen house.

It's a bit daunting to open the fridge and see 24 eggs piled up, but we reckon 2 banty eggs equal one grown up egg and as Friday is cakes day (bake or buy) in the Wallis Hunter workshop , we soon get through them. Sandy's chocolate brownie is second to none, and if he can't be bothered he just arives with some of Mum's (of the Network Centre) magnificent offerings.

A load of plaster which we use in the casting process arrived late this afternoon ; like our silver and gold, it comes from the Midlands, and there is ALWAYS a bag burst so it's out with the sticky tape before we can get it out of the van. Sandy sneaked off early leaving Mike to heave 20 bags into the casting shop.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

NEW BANGLES

2009-04-18T17:34:00.002+01:00

Weeks ago we had a creative moment and came up with a range of bangles. Just a regular set, the sort of bangle you wear every day. There seem to be quite a few about the shops thanks to agent Peter but not on display on the web. My fault. Photography takes ages and ages is what we are short of . But it's done. Go and look.We like them.
The shop has been great this last two weeks. Loads of visitors, many familiar faces. Thanks all for calling in ,we really did enjoy seeing you. Our most popular line so far this year are the Chared range, Mackintosh and Odin pendants. and of the non Wallis Hunter Polish Amber and Portuges stuff. Busy times.
Wonderful weather, why are you all not in Carradale. This time of the year is Kintyre at it's best. Don't waste it . Cottages available! Phone us on 01583 431 683.
Time for a glass of wine in the garden, with the hens, and the dog, and the sun and no midges-yet.
And Sandy got his Astra going. Bravo. Lock up your daughters.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-04-17T09:03:00.002+01:00

Quick update. Unlike Wallis Hunter Archie has been overcharging! Yes, a quick spin into the town - braving the sulphur fumes- revealed that the battery is getting too many volts (or something). So a new alternator is on the way. Next stop the body shop where after a bit of deliberation, and a lot of prodding and tapping, nice Mr Leishman said he is willing to patch up Archie's holes and give him a shiny new coat. So next picture he will be unrecognisable.

Soon off to the Aviemore Trade Fair so lots of preparation going on in the workshop.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

2009-04-14T19:23:00.003+01:00

Green Archie

Handel week on radio 3 (for afficionados it should be pronounced Haendal) so there we were listening over breakfast remarking on the strange accompaniment; then we thought it was maybe the radio; then I realised the noise was a huge shreiking outside so I went to check and reckoned on the Village Hall fire alarm at least. Came in to report, Mike went out and informed me that it was Green Archie yelling his heart out - for a car with no perceptable alarm system this was quite a racket.

Well, I know I forgot to put the hood up so he got a bit damp, but really...................

A quick disconnect of the battery and peace returned. We are now totally baffled - a battery that boils, smell like sewage, and yells blue murder when it's annoyed.

Tomorrow to the battery shop.

And the nice lady in the Scottish Parliament shop is going to put photos of our kilt pins around the place.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Another busy week ahead! :)

2009-04-13T16:46:00.003+01:00

No let up in the little village today. There's an Easter Bunny Hunt which means that "thousands" of people have flooded to Carradale, in search of choccy eggs *yum!*

Good news for us because it means there's been a small influx of people in the shop, which is always nice and hope it continues into the rest of the week.

Aswell as a bit of local trade we've had some more overseas orders (and I don't mean from England.) More of our Kilt Pin Company products off to Canada and Italy. I really like the idea of our kilt pins and jewellery being worn around the globe.

If anyone has one of our pins (or anything else that you've gotten from us) I'd love to get some action piccies to put up on here. The email adress is down below. If I get a few I might even start a gallery for your pics. Let me know!

Time for a cuppa and a well earned rest.

Cheery bye.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

What a fine Easter

2009-04-12T12:45:00.003+01:00

Highlight of Easter was a dinner party for a great and dear friend. Some of you will remember Keith and Walter Campbell from the Glen Store, pub and Eating house. Well Walter was 80 the other day and the boys (well some of them) had every excellent dinner in the Dunvalenree Hotel. Happy Birthday Walter and thanks Andrew and Donald. Great food, You must eat there.
The shop was a lot of fun. Last year it was not worth being open but yesterday was good, you all bought nice things, hope you all enjoy them. WE WILL NOW BE CLOSED ON SATURDAYS UNTIL WHIT. External events make us just not available, sorry. Open all week.
A lot of new product landed in the shop for Easter that Catherine displayed very nicely. this coming week our new range of Bangles go out. Lindsey is in charge of making them so if they are not on display shout at her!
Harrogate was very uplifting. The British Crafts Trade Show at the show ground happens every year but we missed it for a good few. A lot of youngsters having a shot. Many with a lot to learn but if they keep their heads down they could also be manufacturing in 35 years time. We will start taking delivery in the next few weeks.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Easter

2009-04-10T10:17:00.003+01:00

Well, as it's Easter we better say something about it being Easter.

Carradale awakes like a wee caterpillar emerging; suddenly you can't walk the dog without MEETING PEOPLE. Takes a lot of getting used to.

And loads of old friends pouring into the Gold Foundry just to say 'hello' and see what we've got new for the coming season. Unfortunately it's all a nine days wonder and most of our new goodies don't come in until about May. But lot's of those will slowly be appearing on the shelves so come and see if you're passing. As ever, Mike and I have overloaded on jewellery buying - well it's what we really know about.

A trip to Whitby on Tuesday opened our eyes; Whitby jet necklaces at £1000. Rummage through grannie's jewel box, she may well have some tucked away.

Green Archie is whizzing around the village quite happily,, but we are now going to see if we can get a new alternator on e-bay and solve his wee battery problem

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

FRIDAY NIGHT

2009-04-03T20:22:00.002+01:00

Ah well; It seems to have been a long week. But a good one.
The work source for the six of us comes from a few regular places. First the shop, not a major part of our overall but very important to us, lets us know what real people think of our produce. And we are all chatterboxes at heart. The web site is, again, small but important. An overall catalogue to our products old and new. Peter, familiar to many of you, our sales agent, zips around Scotland selling our set to retail customers. Finally, our fastest growth area, the semi finished production for other manufacturers - that keeps us all on our toes. They are hard task masters.
So, this week has been good on all fronts, semi finished particularly. And we can still sell loads of Rennie Mackintosh jewellery. Remember, we were one of the first companies to make this gear in any volume, Then the Far East took over. Drat. Are we the last Scottish outfit to still make it?
Of to the British Crafts Trade Fair in Harrogate next week to source new goodies for the shop, much looking forward to seeing first rate British Craftsmanship. But now, a Friday night dram.

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Returning stuff

2009-04-02T09:45:00.003+01:00

Just as an aside today, for the first time ever I think someone doesn't like a piece we sent them and wants to return it. NO PROBLEM! If ever you don't like some of our Wallis Hunter goodies, or they don't resemble the photo, we will take it back and credit your card.
Fantastic spring day here; wonderful primroses everywhere. At the week-end Mike and I go and visit the British Craft Fair to chose some more wonderful goodies for our shop here at the Gold Foundry

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Green Archie is grounded again.

2009-03-31T12:48:00.003+01:00

Since the trauma of the cylinder head gasket, he’s has been going really well - even reaching 55mph on the long straights. So I happily bowled into Campbeltown last week with the hood down, Spring in the air, and a huge bag of books for the accountant in the passenger seat.

As we approached the town there was certainly a funny smell, but I put it down to the Campbeltown sewerage system discharging yet again into the Loch. Books delivered, shopping done, we whizzed back again; joy of joys I thought, at last this car is reliable. Admittedly as we approached home the funny smell increased - a bit petrolly so perhaps a leaking pipe?

Better be good and have a look I thought when we got home, and lifted the bonnet. Carbs all dry, nothing untoward - except for the steam emerging off the boiling battery.

So - hint for the week; boiling batteries smell like a mixture of petrol and sewage.

Phoned our various knowledgeable chums who all said, alternator/battery (both pretty new); so we are now going to risk a drive into the battery shop to see what they can advise, hoping we don’t explode on the way.

Meanwhile Archie sulks in a corner, and I get e-mails from the accountant

As always, we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

Bloomin Machines

2009-03-30T19:31:00.002+01:00

And so; Monday begins with us all moaning about how wonderful it is to live on the West Coast of Scotland. At the end of an 18 mile single track road. A bit of an effort to go anywhere.
But last week was good. A good feed of orders from all our sources - Web orders, The shop and from Peter the agent. Down side to the week was a total inability on my behalf to keep the machinery going. Starting capacitor on the Compressor - a total air of mystery even to those who are supposed to know about such things, packed in or nearly. Got the new bit but lack the nerve to fit it, but only till I find it. And the speed controller on the tumble polisher went with a vast blue flash. And the monitor on the admin computer died, well it was old. But Geoffroy had a spare advertised in the Antler, our local rag.
But that's the joy of living in such a wonderful place.
Sandy is now inseparable from his beloved computer since he finished his CAD_CAM course in Birmingham. Must say he and all of us are making huge progress. The first modeled prototypes came back from Delcam today and we are all impressed. Lets hope Sandy and I can progress a few designs that don't look like a computer designed them.
Maybe we will have a few ready for the Aviemore Trade Fair,26th to 28th April.

we want to hear from you so please comment but if you'd like to email us click, click, click away! :D

We've got new gemsets! (link!)

2009-03-30T14:15:00.002+01:00

This is just one of the gemset rings I've just added to the site. It's in 9ct White gold with five "channel set" amethysts. :D

There's loads and loads of these lovelies on the site now, so go, look, enjoy, buy! ;)

I hope you like them and please, please, pleeeeease comment back here on our blog, because we'd like to know what you're thinking.

You may also notice that this is our FIRST POST! Woo! The first of many and they're mostly going to be about our own jewellery-making exploits, maybe the odd tutorial and lots about living in the lovely, lovely West Coast of Scotland. :D