Behind the Torch: What It Really Takes to Create a Metalsmith Academy Class

If you think filming a Metalsmith Academy class means I just rock up, flick on a camera and start soldering like a serene metalsmithing goddess… I wish.
What actually happens looks more like a crime scene made of coffee cups, silver dust, and a posture last seen in pretzels.

Every bit of that chaos has a purpose though - behind the camera, there’s planning, testing, and more retakes than I’d ever admit.

And everything is scripted to make sure I’m working in a logical order and not wasting anyone's time waffling… all to make sure you can learn without the drama.

So today I thought I’d pull back the curtain and show you what really goes into creating a Metalsmith Academy class, the craft, the caffeine, and the stubborn streak that keeps me doing “just one more take” until it’s perfect.

If you’ve ever watched one of my classes and thought, “She makes it look so easy,” buckle up - because here’s what it actually takes to get it that way.

Where It All Began

Long before the Metalsmith Academy existed, I trained the traditional way: white-walled studios, brilliantly demanding tutors, and benches so spotless you could eat your lunch off them (though you wouldn’t dare). I learned from masters who could spot a crooked solder seam from across the room and make you redo it before you’d even exhaled. There’s nothing like the sound of an expert sighing at your file marks to build character.

That kind of training sticks with you. Once you’ve been taught to measure twice, solder once, and redo it anyway just to be sure, you can never unsee sloppy teaching again. But getting that kind of training wasn’t easy. Those courses cost thousands, demanded months (and even years) away from home, and for me, meant moving countries more than once just to sit at the right bench. It was worth every minute… but not exactly accessible for most people.

So when online jewelry classes started popping up, I was part excited… part skeptical AF.

On one hand, it was brilliant. Finally, people could learn from home, at their own pace, without having to remortgage their house or fly halfway across the world for a few weeks of training. It felt like the start of something big - a way for more people to fall in love with this craft.

But I also couldn’t shake the feeling that jewelry-making was too hands-on, too practical to really work online. 

The reality didn’t exactly help either.

Many online teachers were simply teaching as if they were in the room with you, forgetting that online learning is completely different. When you’re not there to answer questions at 1am while someone’s soldering their first ring, you have to think of those questions before they even come up - and make sure every single one is answered inside the class itself.

Instead, there were hands blocking the view, blurry footage, and crucial steps skipped with no explanation of why something worked. You’d see a project appear out of nowhere and think, Hang on… when did we solder that?

So I sat on the idea for a year, and the requests just kept pouring in… 

Until one day I realized that when I was teaching in-person classes, I was already using a camera to show the close-up details - the bits people couldn’t actually see, even if they were standing right next to me.

That’s when it clicked.

It wasn’t that jewelry-making couldn’t be taught online… it just needed to be taught differently than in person.

More intentional. More detailed. More thought-through.

Because you’re not just showing someone what to do - you’re guiding them step-by-step, making sure nothing gets missed, and that every stage actually makes sense as they’re doing it.

So that’s how the Metalsmith Academy was born… equal parts passion, and pure stubbornness.

Now, fast forward to today, and every single class you see inside the Academy starts its life the same way, with far too many notebooks, an unreasonable amount of caffeine, and me obsessing over how to make each step feel easy for you.

The Planning You Never See

Before the camera ever switches on, there’s an entire phase of quiet chaos! The first stage of any class happens miles away from the studio, usually at my kitchen table surrounded by sketches, test pieces, and a small mountain of scrap silver that “might come in handy.”

But truth be told? Not all ideas start there.

Some of my best class ideas have come when I’m supposed to be not working… on holiday, at the pub, or mid “I’ll just relax for five minutes.” My brain gets a little less chaotic so I get an idea, it then realises I’m too calm, decides it doesn’t like that one bit, and suddenly - boom - I’m scribbling notes on napkins like a madwoman while everyone else is ordering another round.

Planning isn’t about perfection; it’s about empathy. I picture you at the bench thinking, Hang on, which side was up again? and design the class so that question never pops up.

Sometimes that means binning a perfectly good idea because I realize I haven’t taught enough of the “back up skills” quite yet to make the class a success. After all, showing someone how to do a bead setting before showing them how to sharpen a graver is a recipe for failure. So sometimes that means remaking a project five different ways to find the cleanest path from A to aha.

I’ll spend weeks breaking techniques down into small wins, constantly asking myself, “Would this make sense if I were seeing it for the first time?” (Spoiler: usually, the answer is no… at least the first dozen times.) It’s equal parts logic puzzle… and me stubbornly refusing to let anything slip through the cracks.

There’s a fine line between “thorough” and “utterly unhinged,” and I walk it proudly!

Bench truth: Every smooth, satisfying moment you see in a class started here, with me muttering at a sketchbook and convincing myself that this extra coffee is “for focus.”

When a Class Becomes a Story

Once the plan finally makes sense (and the coffee supply is restocked), it’s scripting time!

Yes, I actually write scripts, but not because I’m chasing perfection or trying to sound clever. It’s because jewelry-making is full of tiny details that can make or break a project. Things that feel second nature once you’ve been doing this for years, like how to hold a file for maximum control, or how to properly support your hands when soldering so the solder goes exactly where you want it, are make-or-break moments for beginners.

When we’re teaching in person and forget to mention something, it’s no big deal, someone will just ask in class. But with online teaching, I have to make sure every single one of those little “oh, by the way” moments is already answered inside the class itself. That’s what the scripting’s for: catching all those invisible details before they trip someone up.

My Getting Started Soldering class ended up at over 50,000 words. That’s not indulgence… that’s insurance! It means you never have to pause and rewind wondering what on earth just happened. (The video editor (me) is still in therapy, but your solder seams are cleaner, so we’ll call it a win.)

I learned early on that the order you teach things in matters just as much as the technique itself. If you tell someone what to do but not what could go wrong, you’re already too late. It’s always better to warn people before they melt the bezel, not after! So I design every lesson like a staircase, each small step leads to the next, and before you know it, you’ve nailed a technique that used to terrify you.

I’ll rewrite the flow over and over until it sounds like I’m right there at your bench, explaining it in plain English (with a few sarcastic comments and minor torch-based trauma along the way).

Bench truth: The secret to great teaching isn’t fancy words or perfect takes, it’s flow. When the story makes sense, your hands follow. (Thank goodness, because I don’t have many fancy words anyway.)

Filming for You, Every Angle, Every Step

Filming is where all that careful planning meets tripod chaos! There are cables everywhere, lights that could tan a vampire, and at least three half-finished projects lying around so I can show you every single stage clearly. (You’d think I was running a small jewelry factory... and honestly, some days it feels that way.)

Getting around the studio turns into its own challenge too - it’s basically one of those laser alarm systems from the movies. You know the scene… Catherine Zeta-Jones weaving in and out of laser beams? That’s me, dodging tripods instead of lasers.

Graceful? Absolutely not.
Covered in “mystery” bruises? Always.

If something blocks the view, I redo it. If the focus slips halfway through a solder seam, I redo it again. My rule’s simple: if you can’t see it, you can’t learn it! And if my best camera angle conks out halfway through filming due to overheating, I’ll never skip that step. I’ll just make the piece again.

It’s a far cry from my early training days in community college when you got one quick demo and then were sent off to “figure it out.” Blink, and you missed the most important bit. Now, I make sure every flame, file, and fiddly little join is caught in glorious detail, no squinting required.

Sure, there are moments when I mutter at the camera, trip over a tripod, or realise halfway through that my hand was covering the join (again). I won’t tell you how many shots have been interrupted by me kicking a cat out of the room for using a tripod as a scratching post. But when that final take is crystal clear (and I know you’ll be able to see exactly what’s happening), it’s magic!

Bench truth: Every clean close-up you see has probably been filmed, refilmed, and followed by a round of high fives between me, Fatima, and Qaralin as we look at each other and say, “OMG that shot couldn’t have gone any better.” Usually followed by a very silly happy dance.

And once all that’s finally captured, the real work begins, turning hours of footage into something that actually flows.

Editing: Turning Hours Into Understanding

Here’s the maths that makes most people blink: for every single hour of finished class, I sift through about twenty hours of footage. (Yes, twenty. My laptop fan deserves its own medal at this point, and I probably have about $6000 worth of hard drives and SD cards.)

Editing is where the chaos turns into clarity. It’s the part where I take all those camera angles, retakes, and accidental “oops” moments and turn them into something that flows so smoothly you’d never know I once dropped my file mid-shot. Afterall, no one wants to sit through five minutes of me waffling while I look for a runaway gemstone or a rogue saw blade.

Every cut is intentional, every close-up chosen to make sure you can actually see what’s going on. If there’s even a second where you’d think, Wait, what did she just do? back I go into the edit to fix it.

When it finally flows from start to finish, it’s like watching a perfect solder seam come together, clean, precise, and quietly satisfying. (And yes, there’s usually a victory dance involved.)

But the work doesn’t stop when the video’s done! Next comes one of the most important parts of the whole process, the handouts.

Handouts: The Unsung Heroes

Every class inside the Academy comes with a printable handout, the quiet little hero that saves your sanity when the solder’s flowing and your laptop’s buried under a layer of rouge.

We don’t do screenshots. They miss the detail, the angle of a saw blade, the way the solder flows, the moment a joint turns that perfect flash of silver. So, I rebuild the entire project from scratch just for photography. New metal, new lighting, new “please let this be in focus” prayers.

Each photo is planned so you can see exactly what your eyes need to at the bench. Then I lay them all out with clear captions, tool lists, and step-by-step instructions you can actually follow. (Because scrolling through videos with a torch in one hand is a terrible idea, trust me.)

You can print them, scribble on them, and keep them right beside you while you work, no rewinding, no guesswork, no laptop casualties. They’re your bench-side buddy when you need a quick reminder of what happens next.

Bench truth: The handouts take almost as long to make as the videos, but they’re the part most people use the most, and that’s exactly why I love creating them!

Take the Getting Started Soldering class, for example - there are 8 individual handouts with a total of 201 pages, and together they’re basically bigger than a book. Not exactly light bedtime reading… but bloody handy at the bench 😉

Why ‘Good Enough’ Just Isn’t My Thing

I’ve seen plenty of jewelry classes rushed out in record time. They look fine at first glance, but the moment you try to follow along, things just stop making sense. That’s not my style.

I was taught that if you’re going to do something, you do it properly or not at all. Those old-school standards stuck with me. They weren’t about being fancy; they were about respect - for the student, the craft, and the metal.

Before any class goes live, I ask myself, Would I be proud to show this to the people who trained me? If the answer’s anything short of “absolutely,” it’s back to the bench for another round.

And honestly, part of what keeps my standards so high is good old-fashioned imposter syndrome. It never really goes away, but it’s become my secret weapon. That little voice that whispers, Are you sure that’s clear enough? is exactly the reason I keep improving every single class.

Bench truth: When a lesson feels calm and clear, it’s because I’ve spent months making it that way. Clarity doesn’t happen by accident; it’s forged, filed, and polished like everything else worth doing.

Why It’s All Worth It

Here’s the truth, I absolutely love this work. Even on the days when the solder won’t flow, the camera’s sulking, and my coffee’s gone cold (again), I still can’t believe this is what I get to do for a living.

When someone in the Academy posts their first finished pendant and says, “I actually did it!” I grin like an idiot. When a student tells me a class finally made soldering make sense, it makes every retake and rewrite worth it. (Even the ones where I accidentally smacked the camera with the rolling mill handle)

Jewelry-making has given me more than a career; it’s given me patience, pride, and a community of brilliant weirdos who get excited about a perfect saw line. You know who you are, and I adore you for it. Sharing that joy and helping you feel that same spark is the best part of all.

So the next time you sit down to watch a class and everything just flows, know that it’s not luck. It’s months of planning, filming, editing, and a slightly unhinged jeweler who cares far too much about you having a good time at the bench.

And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Lucy xx