Silver art clay and kirsties book...hints and tips please

[changemylife]

so excited my materials have arrived. Never tried it before but love the button necklace so thought I would give it ago.

Has anyone worked with this clay before? Any hints and tips pls

I use PMC+ which is the same thing. Lots of tutorials on youtube which are really helpful. Basically, it drying out is the enemy so you need to work fast, put any offcuts straight back int he pack and do rough rolling out under cling film to preserve moisture. Well worth getting on a course if you can find one locally (you might need to look for Precious Metal Clay if you're googling to give you more options...) Also I buy Making Jewellery Magazine which has projects each month for silver clay amongst other things. Good luck! It would be quite addictive if it wasn't so expensive!

changemylife Ooh am interested in this! What book did you get and where did you get your materials if you don't mind me asking? I've looked around for courses local to me but haven't found anything yet that's doable. I want to make jewellery from broken crockery and I think this method would be well-suited. Am wondering what kind of financial investment you need to make. Plipplops is it VERY expensive to do?

I'm being totally lazy here because I have looked it up online a while back but unfortunately lost all the bookmarks I made of the good sites.

Plipplops - thanks for the advice. Cartblanche- Cooksongold.com is what I used . It was recommended in Kirsties book. The silver clay was around £18 for 10g . I think this should be enough to make say a ring and small pendant. Its all the extras that mount up I ended up buying a complete starter kit with all the bits and bobs you need plus a dvd.
Just need to get around to doing it!

Cartblanche do you want to set crockery into silver? You could do that but as the silver clay shrinks when you fire it I think you'd have to make a bezel and fit the crockery in afterwards if you wanted to set anything other than v small bits - don't think you could just embed it in and then fire it iykwim? If you wanted to that then polymer clay (i.e. fimo) might be better (but not quite as classy?!?) It's not crazily expensive but you definitely get better with practise, and can spend a fair bit making rubbish at the beginning. Doing a local course lets you see what equipment you might need before you go the whole hog and buy everything (for instance, all the clays are a bit different but I use PMC+ and fire it on the gas hob, have never bothered getting a torch, and you can just use a piece of plastic tubing from B&Q instead of necessarily buying an acrylic roller...) Whereabouts are you? I've got an old magazine here that has lots of courses in and might have something near you?

And CooksonGold is good (but quite expensive for some things - I do a bit of silver work too). You do need to shop around as the prices change all the time. I got my last lot from Bluebell something in Scotland, but you have to buy 45g at a time I think. Because of the drying out problem if you buy loads and don't use it sometimes it's a false economy... Starter kits aren't a bad idea as at least then you can just get on with it.

plipplops Thanks for all that info. I'm in the West of Scotland. I am looking at small shards of crockery - the sort you find on beaches or ploughed fields with a view to making pendants, possibly rings. I envisaged having that kind of "dipped in silver" look so that the silver "cups" the crockery securely and also looks nice (so NOT the fimo approach ) I think you're right about going on a course so I can get a feel for the medium and a handle on what you need to do it successfully.

changemylife - thank you too - I'll have a look for that book.

Cartblanche can't see any courses near you, sorry:( I did ask a couple of people I know who use PMC much more than me, they said you might be able to push tiny chips in but probably you'd have to make a bezel setting (where you leave a kind of slot in the clay for the pottery, fire the piece and insert the crockery afterwards). Some places do correspondence courses (there's one in Cornwall), but YouTube would probably be your best bet. Sorry that's not very helpful...

Just saw this Plipplops - many thanks for looking into it for me. I'll have a dig around YouTube.

Cartblanche, I know what kind of setting you're thinking of - like a rubover setting that cradles the entire thing.
Due to having to fire the clay that wont really work.

Brazen in the merchant city do workshops for wannabe silversmiths, although I gather there's now a few places round Glasgow offering this.

Also katie cupcake is a friend of mine who has a shop in Edinburgh selling the sort of thing that you might have in mind.

Good luck, feel free to pm me if you have any problems. (I'm a silversmith and vintage dealer.)

Thanks bethelbeth - hadn't checked in on this thread for a while. Will send you a PM at a more civilised hour