How to keep silver from tarnishing
Wear it often, store it dry and polish it gently: three habits that keep silver bright.
Three days on a granulated kada
Hundreds of tiny silver balls, each placed by hand. How Bijay makes the kada that takes our longest to finish.
Of everything we make, the granulated kada takes the most patience. Bijay, who has worked at our benches for nineteen years, makes most of them, and this is how his three days go.
On the first day he makes the body. A strip of 92.5 silver is rolled to thickness, bent around a steel mandrel to the customer’s size, and the hinge and screw pin are fitted. He then makes the granules: small clippings of silver wire are laid on charcoal and heated until each one melts into a perfect bead. A single kada needs six to seven hundred of them, sorted by size through a fine sieve.
The second day is placement. Using a fine brush dipped in a flux paste, Bijay picks up granules one at a time and sets them along the lines he has scratched onto the surface, in rows, triangles and small flowers. It is slow, quiet work, and the shop knows not to bump his bench. By evening the kada is covered.
On the third day the granules are fused. The whole kada is heated evenly with a fine flame until the surface of each bead just melts into the body, with no solder showing. Too little heat and they fall off; too much and they flatten. Then it is pickled, polished bright inside and lightly oxidised outside so the pattern shows. The finished kada weighs about 58 g and costs ₹8,250, most of it Bijay’s three days. We note his name on your bill.
