Since the Middle Ages, people learned trades such as metal smithing through an apprenticeship. An apprentice was taken on by a master craftsman, usually working for years for nothing more than room and board in exchange for being taught the trade. Doug Shenstone, who taught my father how to pewter, learned his craft this way. After apprenticing, the next step is becoming a journeyman for several years. Finally, the journeyman creates a significant piece meant to showcase his (usually, pewtersmiths were men, but there have always been exceptions) skill, and presents it to the master. If the ‘master piece’ is accepted, the apprentice himself becomes a master.
Doug Shenstone went through this process in the 1930s in Ontario, becoming Canada’s only native-born master pewtersmith. The scarcity of metal after WWII drove him into a more traditional job with the government, but eventually he made his way back to pewtersmithing, working after hours in his shop in Ottawa.
Doug Shenstone in his workshop.
My father’s path was very different. He always had a workshop in the basement and puttered around there in his spare time (he was a metallurgical engineer with the government during the day). The hobbies he tried out that I remember were: oil painting, batik, candle-making (he insisted we hand over broken crayons to use for colour), wood-working and copper enamelling. Then one day, he went out to Shenstone’s workshop to buy a pair of wine goblets for my mother for their anniversary in 1976. Enthralled by what he saw there, he convinced a reluctant Shenstone, who was already in his 60s, to teach him how to pewter.
Colin Hamer in his workshop
Obviously, with a full-time job and young family to look after, there was no question of a true apprenticeship. The concept doesn’t fit with the modern world. My father visited Doug’s shop for lessons after work. Doug had no children and he and my father became close friends. They showed their work in shows together, with Doug’s contribution growing smaller as he aged. When he died at the age of 82 in 1992, he left his equipement and tools to my father, who uses much of it in his workshop.
For years, my father worked in a small workshop in our suburban basement. Machines such as the buffer and lathe are very noisy, and I remember that when it was dinnertime, often one of us kids would walk into the dining room above the workshop and jump on the floor so the vibrations would let my father know it was time to stop. That was where he first began to teach me how to pewter, when I was home from university during summers. Just over 15 years ago, he built himself a proper workshop in the back yard. It is a bigger space, but we still trip over each other in there. Of course, it doesn’t help that my father is a pack-rat. For example, here’s his dizzying array of files.
I think about 5 of them are really useable. Well, maybe 4 – in my opinion his roughest file really could be replaced. With the rest, my father picks them up one after another and says, “Nope, not that one, nope that’s not good, nope, nope …” and then puts them back. I’m starting to get good at recognizing the good ones, though.
Becoming a Pewtersmith 