How do I joint silver wire and silver precious metal clay in jewelry making?

Question

I'm new to jewelery making and I'm trying to create a necklace that will be made mostly of 18 gauge dead soft silver wire. I'd like to add some other bits like tiny hearts and flowers and thought the precious metal clay would be the easiest way to sculpt those parts. I'll be using a butane torch to solder the wire parts but how do I go about joining the clay bits once they are fired? Will I need solder or flux?

Answer 1

If you are soldering pure silver to pure silver, it will work fine.  Just remember to be careful, since you using a torch - the pmc can melt and vaporize if you hold the torch on it for too long, or too hot.  (Be sure to have safe ventilation - silver fumes are poisonous)

The other option is to fire the pmc with the silver jump ring (or other finding) embedded into the clay.  I've had good results with this, using fine silver findings.  I fire my silver clay in the kiln.

If you fire the pmc with the findings in it, the findings will need the same clean up that the clay needs (not a problem really)  

You can also make your jump ring/findings for the silver clay piece out of more silver clay, and join it to your piece with slip.  Then when it comes out of the kiln, attach your other wire as usual.

BIG NOTE:

I use the low fire clay, because it has less shrinkage.  If you are using the original or PMC II, the shrinkage is greater and might affect how well it would fire with the finding embeded  

If the charms are small enough, just put a hole in the top of the charm, fire it, and attach it to a jump ring.  Solder the ring closed.

hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't know the answer to that for sure, but after it's cured and cleaned, Precious Metal Clay (and Art Clay Silver) are pure silver. so I'd guess you could use whatever you'd normally use for that.  There may be some differences though with the various versions of PMC, etc, though?

If you don't get a good answer here, you should check out one of the sites for PMC (or Art Clay) and/or ask in their forums.  

You can find links for those sites on this page at my website:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/Characteri...

(... click on *Metal Clays* at the end of that list at the top of the page to jump down to the category on metal clays)

HTH,

Diane B.

Answer 3

After PMC is fired, it's 99.9% silver. Anything that can be done with metal can be done on fired PMC - sawing, filing, hammering and soldering. You can also imbed your silver wire into the clay and fire it all together. (If you're using sterling wire it will get firescale and will need to be pickled after firing.) PMC can be soldered, but be aware that it's more porous than sheet metal and sometimes will absorb the solder. And, yes, you need to use flux.