Production
Kalevala Jewelry products are manufactured in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki. A historical red brick building is located in a park next to an idyllic river.
Inside the walls the old and the modern come together as the skilled goldsmiths combine new technologies with the methods and tools of the ancient jewelers. Individual skills are highly valued, as well as the flawless coordination between the eye and the hand. These are the ingredients for making jewelry that is beautiful to look at and pleasing to wear.
Sustainability and respect for the environment is self-evident at Kalevala Jewelry. Domesticity of the raw materials is important, production uses recycled gold and silver and waste waters are collected and treated.
The openness of the company's culture also reflects to the outside world. Our guided public tours give an opportunity to visit the company and to see how Kalevala Jewelry products are created.
You are warmly welcome to visit us!
This is how the Snow Flower jewelry are made:
Also this can be a goldsmith's tool. The 3D model of the Snow Flower is being prepared using the drawing pad and the computer.
Snow Flowers printed in blue wax with a 3D printer.
Some of the wax models are still created traditionally by hand. Hot wax is injected inside a rubber mold and the solidified wax model is carefully removed from the mold.
The wax flowers are ready for the next stage.
The wax models are attached to a wax pole forming tree-like structures. The trees are placed inside a cylinder which is then cast with plaster. Numbers on the cylinders mark the different treatments each cylinder receives depending on the jewelry model that is being produced.
The wax has been melted off from the cylinder and replaced with molten metal.
After the metal casts have cooled down the plaster can be removed. The metal casts are now exact copies of the wax models.
The flowers cut off from the cast metal trees have now found their way on the smith's table. Each manufactured piece of jewelry is hallmarked with a KK sign (Kalevala Koru).
The rough cutting edge left from the casting is polished by the smith using an abrasive disc circling 3000 rounds per minute.
All the soldering work is carried out using a liquefied gas torch.
From the smith's table the jewelry is taken to the surface finishing department. In the last stage of the production the silver Snow Flowers are plated with an invisible anti-tarnish coating.
The work of modellers, wax makers, founders, smiths and surface finishers is now ready. Now it is the turn for Snow Flower to start its assignment - to bring joy to its user for many years to come.
The making of a ring
The journey of a ring from the skillful hands of our smiths to the store.
