The Art of Keum Boo - Hammered Gold Drop Earrings

Learn how to add beautiful 24k gold to your silver jewellery - with tips for soldering Keum Boo Jewellery

About the Class

This class continues my series on Keum Boo, the ancient Korean technique that translates as “attached gold”, and one of my absolute favourite jewellery making techniques to teach.

In the introductory class, we focused on learning how the gold bonds to the silver. This time, we’ll build on those skills by adding soldering and hammered texture to create a beautiful pair of earrings with rich golden detail and plenty of sparkle and movement.

Soldering Keum Boo pieces requires a little extra care, as overheating can cause the gold to sink too deeply into the silver and lose some of its rich golden colour. In this class, I’ll guide you through how to solder your pieces safely and how to care for the gold afterwards so that it keeps its beautiful warm finish.

I’ll also show you how well Keum Boo stands up to texture, using hammering techniques to demonstrate that the bonded gold is strong enough to be textured without splitting.

As with all Keum Boo work, a very small amount of gold creates a striking effect, making this a wonderful way to add the richness of gold to your jewellery without needing large amounts of expensive material.

An understanding of the information in the first class in this series, the Golden Butterfly Pendant class, is useful. All of the Keum Boo classes can be found in The Art of Keum Boo course bundle

READY TO GET STARTED? ENROL HERE FOR £25

You will need:

Materials:
* approx 0.8mm sterling silver sheet, enough for two 16mm diameter discs
*​​​ 24k gold Keum Boo foil, enough to cover both discs
* 12cm 0.8mm sterling silver round wire for the earwires

Equipment: (all the jewellery making kit listed here can be used for many different projects)
* Soldering kit - see here for more details
* Ultralite kiln or hot plate
* Steel or agate burnisher
* Wooden coffee stirrer (or similar) and small pot of water
* Disc cutter
* Leather cushion
* Doming block and wooden or nylon punches
* Steel block
* Old hammer for hitting tools, Cross pein hammer and rounded hammer
* Ruler, sharpie and scissors
* Needle files
* Very fine sanding pad or medium radial disc and pendant drill
* Small mandrel
* Flat nose pliers and wire cutters

An explanation of all the tools and materials that you need is included in the videos, and a downloadable equipment and materials list is available with the class.

These earrings would be just as lovely as smaller studs, and would make fantastic presents!

1 hour 11 minutes long, 16 lessons


Reviews

Course Curriculum

"Loved the class!!"
Sue C.
"Love the luxurious look of these earrings - and love that I've now been able to make my own pair!"
Alex J.
"Joanne has again explained every stage of this process, clearly and with insight. Well worth watching, even if you already practice keum-boo"
Dawn G.

Joanne Tinley

Tutor and Founder of The Jeweller's Bench

The Jeweller's Bench is run by Joanne Tinley. She has been making her own jewellery for as long as she can remember and left her first career as a school teacher to set up business as a  jewellery designer and tutor nearly 20 years ago. She is
self-taught and like many people started with wire and beads. Learning how to solder, however, opened up a whole new world of jewellery making,  one that she is keen to share!

Legal Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to show safe working practices and to discuss health and safety aspects of jewellery making, but in the end I cannot take responsibility for how the tutorial information is used and how safely you work. Take the effort to set up your work area safely right from the start!
All Rights Reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced or shared without express, written consent from the author.

© 2026 The Jeweller's Bench