How Mokume-Gane Is Made: Forge-Welded Mixed Metal Jewelry
Craft & Technique
Children of Lir bowl, 12 inches, sterling silver, brass, bronze, copper and nickel-silver
Mokume-gane is a Japanese metalworking technique that translates literally as "wood grain metal." Developed by 17th-century swordsmiths, the process involves forge welding layers of different colored metals into a single billet, then manipulating the layers to reveal patterns that resemble the grain of wood. At Walker Metalsmiths, this technique has been a part of the workshop practice since 1980, applied to jewelry, hollowware, and one-of-a-kind commissions in combinations of sterling silver, brass, copper, bronze, and nickel-silver.
How Mokume Is Made
The forge welding process that produces mokume-gane is rarely seen outside a working shop. The temperatures are extreme, the timing is critical, and the margin for error is slim. In 2003, Walker Metalsmiths opened the process to the public for the first time.
During the 2003 Allegany Artisans Studio Tour we presented our first ever public demonstration of this exciting process. In the past, our forge and power hammer were set up in a space that was not appropriate for visitors. This September the equipment was installed at our workshop on Main Street in Andover. By having materials prepared in advance we showed the entire lamination cycle, from metal preparation, through heating and forging in a two hour demonstration.
Sheets of brass, copper, nickel-silver and bronze are scrubbed clean.
Metal is dried quickly and inspected.
Last minute touch-up.
37 individual sheets are bolted tightly between steel plates.
After heating for about an hour the fused billet comes out of the forge.
Steel plates are removed while the metal is still very hot.
The billet of mokume is reheated and hot forged from a thickness of over 2 inches thick to about half an inch. The machine is a 1914 vintage Bradley power hammer.
A section of the billet with the edge polished. Slabs of metal may be sawed off the edge to make stripes.
Please note: This billet is heated to over 1600 F, which works just fine for this combination of alloys. If the billet was silver and copper the elements would combine into a eutectic alloy that would melt out at this high temperature.
Woodgrain patterns are made by punching bumps up on thinner sections of the metal and filing through them to expose bull's-eyes of the colored layers.
From Billet to Jewelry
Once a billet has been forged, the real design work begins. The block of fused metal contains dozens of colored layers waiting to be revealed. What happens next depends on whether the goal is stripes, woodgrain, or something more complex.
Finished jewelry and holloware is made by cutting and shaping the permanently bonded stripes. More complex designs can be made by rearranging stripes and adding sections of plain metal. These are referred to as “Married Metals” when silver soldered into new patterns. Woodgrain effects and twists are another way of developing pattern welded material. The traditional Japanese methods from which this process derives relies heavily on woodgrain patterns, hence its name: Mokume-gane or woodgrain metal.
Combining carved elements of silver and bronze with copper, brass, and mokume-gane. The Mokume-gane is made from laminating layers of brass, copper, nickel silver, and bronze together, then distorting the layers to get a wood grain effect. The colors in the piece may soften and change with wear, but since the color comes from the metals the color will return as the metals oxidize.
Mixed Metal Pendants, Earrings and Bracelets
The Landscape series uses mokume-gane and married metals to create scenes in metal: horizons, hills, and tree lines rendered in the natural colors of copper, brass, bronze, and silver. Each piece is one of a kind, cut from a billet whose internal pattern can never be exactly duplicated.
LS22 Landscape Pendant
1 1/2" x 1", 40mm x 26mm
LS21 Landscape Tree Pendant
1 7/8" x 1 1/4", 45x33mm
LS20 Pendant
7/8" x 7/8", 23x23mm
LS40 Landscape Earrings
1 3/8" x 1/4", 35x6mm
LS43 Landscape Earrings
3/4", 19mm
LS41 Landscape Earrings
11/16" x 3/8", 16x10mm
LS42 Post Earrings
1/2" x 5/16", 12x8mm
MM586
1 3/4", 45mm
MM501W
3/4", 18mm
MM611
1 1/4", 32mm
LS-BR1 Landscape Cuff Bracelet
width 15/16", 23mm
Beyond the Landscape series, the same techniques have been applied to bracelets, belt buckles, and hollow forms. The pillow bead below is a particularly complex construction, built from four separate billets to create a complete landscape in the round.
Pillow pendant/bead
Belt Buckle
This pendant/bead is a hollow construction with a mokume girdle. Four billets are used. The sky is silver and nickel silver, copper and silver make the distant mountains, the middle ground is bronze and the foreground is nickel silver and brass. The edge is brass, copper and nickel silver.
Swan Lake Necklace
This piece uses mokume from 3 billets. The top section is brass, copper and bronze. The central section is silver and copper. The bottom foreground is silver and nickel silver. The red comes from heat treating the copper. With time it will mellow into more brownish tones.
Hinge linked bracelet, made by Danielle with a little help from the master.
Three piece hinged bracelet.
Danielle's bracelet, opened flat.
Married Metal and Mokume-Gane Hollowware
The same forge welding and married metal techniques that produce jewelry can be scaled up to create vessels, bowls, and chalices. This is where the full range of the craft becomes visible: five different metals, each with its own color and working properties, assembled into objects that are as much sculpture as they are functional hollowware.
The figure ground relationships in La Tene Celtic spirals were only rarely crafted in contrasting metals in ancient times. The only well known example is the silver and copper panels on the reverse of the Tara Brooch. The objects shown here are all the products of a modern craftsman who is continuing and adding to Celtic design traditions. The techniques and combinations of materials presented here are not representative of Celtic metalsmithing from the past.
The wonderful pallet of colors and texture is available by using the married metals silver soldered construction technique and the Mokume technique of solderless forge welding stripes and wood effects.
Each of the examples shown here uses five alloys chosen for their colors. They are sterling silver, brass, copper, bronze and nickel silver. Nickel silver is an alloy that contains no actual silver and shows up as a gray in contrast to the white sterling silver. The rich reds and oranges that you see are the result of a heat patina that is a surface oxidation on the copper and bronze.
The technique used to create these bowls is to construct by silver soldering panels of sterling silver, brass, copper, nickel-silver and bronze. They are not “raised” in the traditional sense. The stripes and woodgrain patterns are forge welded using the mokume gane wood grain metal process.
Sold
Sterling silver, brass, copper, nickel, and bronze. 9" diameter.
Children of Lir
In Irish mythology, the Children of Lir is one of the Three Sorrows of Storytelling. King Lir's four children were transformed into swans by their jealous stepmother and condemned to spend 900 years on the lakes and seas of Ireland. It is one of the oldest and most enduring stories in the Irish tradition, and it became the subject of one of the most ambitious pieces ever produced in the Walker Metalsmiths workshop.
Children of Lir bowl, side view
12 inch diameter bowl crafted in sterling silver, brass, bronze, copper and nickel-silver by Stephen Walker. The images are from the Irish legend of the four children of King Lir that were enchanted into the form of swans.
The techniques employed to create this piece are marriage of metals and mokume-gane. Each color is a separate metal that has been joined together by forge welding to create woodgrain effects (mokume) or by cutting and silver soldering closely fit shapes (marriage of metal). The dark reds and oranges are caused by heating the finished piece until the individual metals oxidize into a rich heat patina.
This bowl took approximately two months of full time work and was finished 3 April 1998. Until July it was featured in an exhibit at the National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis Tennessee.
Thanks to my assistants John Bastian and Linda Stark for help cutting and fitting the triquetras. Thanks also to various members of the Dalriada Cultural Heritage Trust for suggestions for the symbols of the provinces of Ireland that are embossed on the boarder and to my muse and wife Susan who insisted that I make this piece.
Silver Anniversary Bowl
For their 25th wedding anniversary in 2006, Steve made Susan a bowl. It is, by any measure, a love letter in five metals.
Married metals sterling silver, nickel silver, mokume and palladium white gold. 12 inch diameter.
This bowl was begun in September 2005. There are 25 triquetras inlaid around the boarder. The heart and the swans’ bills are 14K palladium white gold. There are two kinds of mokume used. The swans’ wings and the damascus twist inner boarder are sterling and nickel silver. The outer boarder triangles are nickel silver and bronze.
MFA Thesis: Married Metal and Mokume Hollowware
The roots of this work go back to graduate school. In 1982, Stephen Walker completed his Master of Fine Art thesis in the Metalsmithing Department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The thesis focused entirely on married metal and mokume-gane hollowware: bowls, spheres, and liturgical vessels that explored the full range of what these techniques could produce. The pieces shown below are from that body of work.
Several of these pieces incorporate shibuichi, a traditional Japanese alloy of silver and copper that patinas to a soft gray-violet. It appears alongside sterling, brass, bronze, and nickel silver in the thesis work, extending the color palette beyond what Western alloys alone can provide.
Bowl, one of a pair
Silver, nickel-silver, brass, bronze and shibuichi. 5" diameter.
Spherical Bowl
Silver, nickel-silver and shibuichi. 8" diameter.
Spherical Bowl
Brass, copper and shibuichi. 5" diameter.
Chalice
Sterling silver and woodgrain mokume.
Married Metal Chalice and Patten
Sterling silver, shibuichi, brass, bronze and 18K gold. Patten 8" diameter, chalice 8" high.
Sterling Memorial Chalice, 9" high
Made from recycled silver and jewelry donated to the church.
From the thesis bowls of 1982 through the Children of Lir in 1998 and the Silver Anniversary bowl in 2005, this body of work represents over two decades of sustained practice in techniques that very few metalsmiths attempt at all.
Further Reading
Midgett, Steve. Mokume Gane: A Comprehensive Study. Earthshine Press, 2000. 157 pp. ISBN 978-0965165075. Features work by Stephen Walker alongside other masters of the technique. The definitive reference on mokume-gane methods, including solid and liquid bonding, patterning, and over 150 color illustrations.
Handcrafted Celtic Jewelry by Stephen Walker
The same workshop that forges mokume billets produces our full line of handcrafted Celtic jewelry. Explore the current collection.
Related Reading
Questions about mokume-gane or our jewelry? Call (800) 488-6347 | Email Us
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About the Author
Stephen Walker has been working with mokume-gane and married metal techniques since completing his MFA at Southern Illinois University in 1982. His work is featured in Steve Midgett's Mokume Gane: A Comprehensive Study and has been exhibited at the National Ornamental Metals Museum. He has been handcrafting Celtic jewelry in Andover, NY since 1984.
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