Precious Metal Clay....a ring in a day!

If you remember reading  this post last November  I was lucky enough to attend a class at our local college as an introduction to this marvellous medium. For those of you who are not aware, Precious Metal Clay (or PMC as it is known) is a made of particles of fine silver held in a pliable binder. This can be worked in a similar way to clay or fimo or sugar craft icing. When completed it is either blow torched or placed in a kiln where the binder burns off to leave solid fine silver which is actually purer than sterling silver.

Well this Sunday I was delighted to return for another PMC course called "A ring in a day". Just as it says on the tin, this is exactly what we did! It was a very intensive day and we only got a 30 minute lunch break, every one was so absorbed in their work. Please excuse the quality of my photos, silver is SO hard to photograph, flash on wipes it out, flash off it seems a little gloomy.

This is my completed ring, not fully polished but in a near finished state.

It has a cubic zirconia stone set in the middle as a feature. This ring was more a ring for me to learn some new PMC skills rather than to actually make a ring I would wear but in the end I did rather like it! My ring started its life in a very different state to the above.....

 
..........it is in this piece of foil wrapping as a blob of clay on the right side of the photo. This is my workbench as we got started. We had to condition and roll the clay out, on this piece of Teflon in the centre, into a ring shank shape.
 
 
 
 
 
 
We then had to texture the clay and carefully wrap it around the ring mandrel which had been marked up to our ring size. It is quite fiddly to work with and needs to be kept moist and not dry out until the shape is final. You also need to use plenty of olive oil to stop the clay sticking to everything.
 

Next we had to carefully remove the ring and put it on a hot plate to dry thoroughly. The clay is SO fragile at this stage if dropped it shatters and sadly the girl's sitting next to me did just that :0(

Once fully dried it was filed smooth at the edges.

 
 
The seam was also filled with clay "paste" which acts in a similar way to the use of "slip" in pottery making. I then decided that I would like to find out how to set stones in PMC so I bought a 4mm cubic zirconia stone from the tutor. These stones are heat proof and will not crack when being fired.
 
 
 
 
 
I had to use a drill bit and then a burring bit to make the hole for the stone to sit in.
 

I then put in the stone and used PMC paste in the form of a "piping" syringe to make a bezel setting and a pattern on the ring shank.

 
This was all carefully dried off again and then fired in the kiln. At this point the fragile clay becomes solid silver. It really is incredible to see.
 

Once it had cooled I used a brass brush to burnish the surface and then tumbled my ring to polish it. Here it  is balanced on top of the lid of my bottle of water.

When I got home I tried to get some better shots;

 I also found it actually went rather well with a heart ring my Hb had made for me 2 Christmas' ago. I may well wear them as a "set".

 

 

I really enjoyed playing again with "Marvellous Precious Metal Clay". I may even attend a 3 day summer school in July to further enhance my skills in using this wonderful silver medium. Oh the thoughts of summer.......... :0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

A term of silversmithing

I was so busy with my Christmas blogs that I did not have time to update you on my current silversmithing projects. I wrote this post last September when my silversmithing class returned after the summer break. As I promised  I will now share with you what I got up to during the autumn term. Our class returned 2 weeks ago , it was good to get back to the bench.

I still had my locket as piece of work in progress from the summer term last year. This has probably been the most challenging piece I have made at class as it involved making the domed front, a matching flat back, etching it with a design and then hand making a hinge. This has all been created from a piece of flat silver sheet.

This is the front and the back before I finished the hinge. It is hard to see the front but the design is actually an etched deco line pattern.
It is really hard to photograph my silver work, the reflection is very strong.

On the back I have soldered two half rings so that I can attach a chain behind the locket. My plan is to hand make the chain...watch this space. I have made chains before and they are very challenging but very interesting to make.







You will be pleased to hear that I finished my locket.

This hinge was one of the most challenging things I have attempted. I am not sure I will be  making a whole series of lockets!

I am pleased though that I kept going as there were so many silversmithing skills I gained from making it.

The next project our tutor set us was to teach us some new skills in shape making by press forming using the bench press. This is a very mean, heavy looking piece of equipment.
 We looked at various hollow shapes to get some inspiration.

Here is the bench press on the left. We were told to decide on a hollow shape we would like to form.









I chose to make a bean shape as it would test my skills more that making a symmetrical one. I had to draw an outline and then cut it out in perspex.

This then had to be carefully filed and then a brass template was also hand sawn...mmm sawing is never easy!

The brass  templates was then stuck to the perspex template and the 2 had to be filed smooth together so that when the piece was formed in the press there would be no sharp edges. I spent some time filing away until the shape was ready for press forming.

A "sandwich" was then formed with the pieces put either side of a piece of flat copper together with some padding. It was put into the press, the handle was screwed down and out came................

A press formed bean

You could make a reverse of this, cut them out and then solder them together to form a hollow shape but this was more an exercise of a new skill rather than making something








Another new technique we were introduced to was cuttle fish casting. Yes honestly you use a cuttle fish to cast with. This is one of the oldest forms of casting and was used way back even in Egyptian times. Luckily one of our students had recently been on holiday and had picked up lots of cuttle fish "bones" from the beach so we did not have to buy them.
Cuttle fish have a soft texture on one side and you are able to carve into this to form a shape. You then bind  this tightly to a flat piece of wood and carefully pour in molten pewter (silver can be used but is obviously much more expensive).

This carving I made created a pretty flower shape. I may at some point make it into a brooch.

This is the shape I carved to create some cuff links for my Hb. The spiky lines out at the sides are air vents to allow the molten metal to "flow" and any air to escape. The brown area is where the molten metal poured in burns the opening to the mould. It is pretty interesting handling bubbling metal, not for the faint hearted!














I had to make 2 castings and then filed the shapes carefully to remove all the surplus pewter.

I then bought some cuff link backs which I attached them to. I

 put the finished cuff links into my Hb Christmas cracker. He really thought they were great and of course quite unique!

Here they are in their finished polished state.

They are quite hard to photo but they almost have a primitive effect which I really like.

Our next project (Spring Term) is to create a setting for an usual shaped stone. We have used rub over settings in the past, Liz wants to stretch us a little further this time.  This is the stone I have bought, a very pretty piece of agate with a flat back.

So now I need to put on my creative thinking cap and start to think of an unusual setting for my stone. This is work in progress again so I will come back and show you when my design is in place. At my slow pace of blogging about my silversmithing  that may well be Easter ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

(P.S please remember I have a free giveaway running at the moment with 2 prizes.  To take part just look at this post. Remember to leave your comments there by this Monday, 24th January, this will be my last post before it closes. Good luck!)