Muskoka Pewter

Muskoka Pewter is a very small business consisting of myself, Garrett Green and my wife Roxanne. I have been creating and manufacturing pewter pieces since 1995. The creation of a pewter piece from start to finish is quite detailed. The first thing I need is a model. From a drawing or a computer image, a model is hand carved into a material called sculpy. I have commissioned many artists over the years to do my hand carvings as well as completing some myself and some others with a CNC machine.

Once I have a model, I need to make a mold around the piece. The mold material I use is silicone. The silicone is cooked in a vulcanizer at about 300 degrees for an hour or two depending on the thickness. Once cooked, the silicone mold needs to have gates and air vents carved into it so that when you pour molten (450 degrees) pewter into the mold, it fills the cavities where the model(s) were.

The pewter I use for pouring is the highest grade pewter you can find. It is lead free consisting of 97% tin plus a mixture of bismuth, antimony, copper and silver in very small amounts.

After pouring, the gate (rough area where the pewter breaks off the piece) must be grinded. Then the pewter piece is cleaned in boiling water, then antiqued in a pewter blackening solution. This allows the black to get deep into the detail. I then tumble about 50 pieces in a vibratory/spinning tumbler of ceramic shot. After the pieces dry, they are buffed with a medium/coarse pad (similar to a scouring pad).

Finally, the pieces are packaged and ready to go.

So from start to finish there are a number of steps. But that's one of the things I like about the process...I'm rarely doing the same things 2 days in a row.

Check out our lastest video on the pewter process...

https://vimeo.com/750212121/c698fae6f2

Finally, we achieved our goal for Fair November 2024.  We created a new Guelph Gryphons Ornament and we created a new University of Guelph Ornament depicting War Memorial Hall...check out the new photos of these ornaments!  Additionally, we brought 14 Guelph historic landmark ornaments in 2023 and hope to increase that number to 18 including the Albion Hotel, the Family Fountain and Our Lady Immaculate for 2024.