Jeweller forging a new career

Neville Wilke, a 50-something jeweller from Centurion, specialises in military jewellery and customised pieces for those who serve in the country’s armed forces.

“I make a lot of dog tags with the person’s battalion emblem on it and maybe a phrase on the back,” he says from behind his computer. He flips through various rings and dog tags on the screen and explains the process of designing an intricate piece of military jewellery.

The process is time consuming, Wilke says. During the first stage, he will do a computer design of the piece he is working on to ensure that the “look” is right.

Then he prints a replica on a specialised wax 3D printer and makes a mould from the replica. Using the mould, he can cast the jewellery.

“One piece takes about a week to finish,” Wilke says. “Although I would be working on more than one piece at a time.”

From his own perspective, Wilke can understand his clients. He’s had to fight to build his new life.

At the beginning of his career, he worked as a jeweller’s apprentice and owned his own jewellery shop. But then he was involved in a head-on car collision and spent two and a half months in ICU. After that, he had to start from scratch.

“It took a long time to recover,” he says. “I had to teach myself how to make jewellery all over again. I had to relearn my craft… Now I can make anything I want to.”

Wilke completed his two years of compulsory military service between 1982 and 1984. “I have a family member who’s in the military and he wanted me to make a diamond ring for his wife – which I did. He then asked me to make him a personalised military piece of jewellery. That’s how it started,” he says.

He has been producing military jewellery for two years and uses sterling silver, gold, copper and platinum. However, he says that any metal can be used if appropriate.

From the start, his marketing strategy has been low-key – he promotes his craft via a Facebook page and otherwise relies on word of mouth. “A lot of the business I get is from military guys who’ve left the service and want something to remember it by,” he says.

Recently he signed a contract with the Navy in Simon’s Town. “They want to put up a statue and need R200 000. They approached me and asked whether I would be prepared to help if they got me orders for military jewellery. I am going to give 10% of the sales to them,” he says.

Orders for this project have already begun streaming in.

Wilke has even produced jewellery for South African zef-rappers Die Antwoord. Yo-landi and Ninja Visser both own rings designed and produced by Wilke. “They wanted something similar to the 27 gangs emblem. So I made a ring with a big 23 and a rat… they loved it,” he says.

The duo will be wearing the rings in a movie to be released in 2015.

Wilke says he has also produced a medallion for King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu. “It’s ironic. I made it with a friend Johny Pretorius. He’s family of the Boer leader Andries Pretorius, who fought the Zulus,” he says.