Silver Clay , Copper Clay and Bronze Clay

I was watching a programme on BBC4 called "Make! Craft Britain". Part of the programme was about jewellery making using a product called silver clay. It appears to be a modelling clay which can be moulded to shape then dried and finally heated to sinter the material to solid silver.

The clay is quite expensive due to the silver content but while looking for the price I noticed that you can also get copper clay and bronze clay which are obviously cheaper and could be useful for making parts for model engineering projects. Things like induction manifolds etc.

Has anyone tried it and does anyone know whether the strength of the final product is the same or degraded in some way.

It is available from Amazon and the programme is on iplayer ​for those interested.

Graham

Daughter uses the silver clay for jewellery making, not aware of copper or bronze clay, where did you find them?

They are all available from Amazon.

Graham

At what temperature does the clay have to be sintered; It sounds interesting. Colin

Suitable for model railway fittings, non structural parts, model boat fittings. Long way from what we would call an engineering material. My sister has used it firing in her glass melting oven. I'm not sure what temperature is used but assume it is below the melting point of the metal being used.
I was thinking of using it for clock spandrels until I saw the price.

I too watched the programme and was impressed with the relative ease with which quite complex shapes could be produced, obviously ideal for jewelry but it didn't stop me from thinking about how a bronze/copper clay could be used for cosmetic items in model engineering. The only downside apart from cost is the necessity to be able to sculpt the item in the first place, a technique that I have absolutely zero ability.

Phil

A search found this website http://www.metalclay.co.uk/ which has a number of how-to pdf's including firing temps etc. It does look as though one needs speedish shaping abilities although some of the paste forms can be painted onto substrates (a leaf as the example) that would be lost in the firng.

I figured one could probably make up a mould to press the stuff into (perhaps out of fimo?). Thay also happen to stick some brass leaf as another way of making faux name plates?

pgk

My wife uses the silver clay, and I have made pen furniture in bronze.

If sufficiently sintered, the bronze can be quite strong. I have tried to use it as an engineering material, but there are problems. The bronze needs to be kiln fired for two cycles. The first to 350c burns off the binder, then cool it, cover in charcoal to stop oxidation, then sinter for 50 mins at 810C. The shrinkage in one type of bronze is 10%, another 15%, but different firings using the same cycle on parts moulded in the same moulds can give a 3% different shrinkage. So it is impossible to make final shape parts. This is infuriating, and I have wasted a huge amount of time trying to get it to work.

Also, making the moulded parts is not fast. It is rare for the final result to be completely water tight first firing, and if the material is over worked, you can mould in air, which causes blisters and spalling. Finally, the material is about 5x the cost of phosphor bronze volume for volume.

I think it's suitable for luxury items where the extra cost & time can be paid for, but not models.

Regards

Richard

My lady makes silver items with silver clay. If one thinks the silver clay is expensive, try the gold version!

Ideal for cast jewellery, but as posted not so good for precision castings. She has tried the proprietary brass, bronze and copper versions and I have a few kg of metal ‘dust’ to try our own fillers. Seems that wifey has moved away from this craft temporarily (she flits around all sorts of crafts but lace takes up most of her time).

There are, of course, fora for these crafts. Just ‘goggle for PMC (Precious Metal Clay). Likely not so much on base metal clays as they are more recent than silver and gold clays. Loads of vids on u-toob, too.

It is mainly an artistic or craft medium. Melting, proper, is better than sintering for most engineering jobs I would say.

For engineering bits, 'lost wax' isn't much more involved and more accurate. This is actually 'lost PLA', about 30mm high.

Thanks for all the replies.It is always good to know about the limitations of various techniques.

Graham