The material for spoons is coin silver obtained from the Government mints in ingots, or from trade for old silver, or from the use of current coin. This is melted over a charcoal fire in plumbago crucibles to a certain heat, known to the adept by the appearance of the surface of the molten metal; it is poured into castiron moulds, forming bars of about seventy ounces each.

These bars are heated over a forge fire of charcoal and worked on the anvil by hammer and sledge, precisely as iron or steel is worked, or are rolled into plates or ribbons. Occasional annealings are necessary to prevent cracking.

The ribbon for the ordinary teaspoon is four and a half inches long by three eighths of an inch wide. When rolled, a blank of two and a quarter inches is lengthened to four and a half inches, to thin it down to spoon thickness. Before rolling or hammering, silver is very nearly as soft as lead; but with these mechanical processes it can be made hard and rigid. Good springs can be made of silver hammered or rolled.

To form the bowl of the teaspoon, the bar, of three eighths of an inch wide and less than three thirty-seconds of an inch thick, is hammered flat on an anvil with a crowning face until the workman has spread it into an oval, which is much thinner in the middle than at the edges, as the edges are to receive the bulk of the wear. The handles are formed also by the hammer.

The curvature of the bowl is produced by repeated "coaxing" blows by a steel punch and a die of cast composition of lead and tin. No file dressing is employed on the faces of the spoon; only the edges are file-dressed to form. From the anvil and the die the spoons come to hand-smoothing with Scotch gray stones and polishing by stiff brushes, generally revolving brushes charged with "grits" and oil. Burnishing is the finish of spoons as of all bright silver goods.