Manufacturing

Our pieces are designed and made by people not machines, using practical tools to craft each piece.

Our small workshop in Takaka is tucked behind the gallery. When you come here you're welcome to see it in action and meet our team. Or take a virtual tour around our gallery and workshop.

Up-cycled Glass

Our up-cycled glass jewellery range is one of our main product lines and we continue to expand our idea of what is possible. Our reused glass is sourced from bottles taken from the waste stream. We have also added old windows to the process which opens up the possibilities with the colour range.

Creation

We've had to invent a range of ways of working with the glass to create the designs we do.

StoneArrow lays claim to being the world's most sophisticated up-cycled glass jewellery manufacturer in the world (feel free to let us know if you can find anyone you think does it better!).

Another use for gin!

We're on the lookout for colored glass, so if you have bottles, windows etc that we can use then please bring it to the Takaka gallery - bottles can be empty or full :)

Up-cycled Glass Manufacturing Process

The slideshow below steps through what we do to create a pair of Hydrangea Earrings from a Bombay Sapphire Gin bottle.

  • How do we make these Hydrangea Earrings?

  • The bottle is cut with a diamond core drill.

  • Slots are cut into the disc with a diamond blade.

  • Steffi shapes the petals on a diamond wheel.

  • Petal shapes.

  • The petals are then slumped in a kiln at an exact temperature, too hot and they blob up, too cold and they don't melt.

  • They are then tumbled for a nice finish.

  • They are then drilled with a high speed air driven diamond bit which rotates at 80,000 revs per minute.

  • A piece of sterling silver wire is heated to make a blob on the end.

  • Tomoko attaches the wire to the petal with no glue or solder needed.

  • Finished at last!

Etching Glass Manufacturing Process

Making a pair of Glass Fern Frond Earrings with the design etched in wine bottle glass.

  • How do we make these glass etched designs?

  • Sandblast resist stickers are put on the blanks cut from a wine bottle.

  • The sandblasting cabinet where we etch away only the area not masked by the sticker.

  • The finished design is very detailed.

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