Brush cleaning PMC

[Faith]

Hello,
In an unrelated project to my other recent post, I've been asked to make a silver PMC fingerprint pendant for a friend (I've never used PMC before otherwise). I test fired a tiny bit of PMC3 (about 1mm x 6mm x 6mm) and cleaned it with a wet brass brush. It was hard to hold the tiny test bit of silver so I didn't do the brushing actually underwater, the brush was just wet - and I didn't use soap or anything. The bit of silver looks distinctly browny to me now though - and I have just read about brass contamination? My question is, should I buy a steel brush to avoid getting bits of brass embedded in the PMC, or did I just do the brushing wrong?
Many thanks,
Faith

[Dennis]

A steel bush will score your silver, but a wet brass brush with a drop or two of hand soap should be OK.

Once marked however, something stronger such as pumice powder (domestic scouring powder) on a toothbrush, would be needed to remove the brass deposit. Dennis.

[Faith]

Thanks Dennis, the tiny test bit is for the scrap pot but I'll try again with soap and see how it goes.

If you wouldn't mind could I ask a follow up question? The convention with these fingerprint pendants appears to be lettering with the child's name (and my friend wants this one to match another one she had made by an online company). I've had a crack following various internet tutorials using this: http://www.cooksongold.com/Precious-Metal-Clay/Needle-Tool-prcode-700-586 to scribe the letters into dry but unfired clay, using my pencil drawn letters as a guide. It seemed horribly difficult to me, I think the pencil marks were actually a hinderance, preventing me from properly seeing what I was doing. But in the best light the 'engraved' letters look spidery and a bit rubbish to me. Sorry that's a truly horrible description of a question, but is there any better way to do this? Once I've fired the piece there'll be no going back without getting her two year old to poke some clay in my kitchen again!
Many many thanks
Faith

[Faith]

On consideration, I think I have a better explanation: I think the tool I'm using for lettering is perhaps too sharp, and therefore its making marks that are very narrow and straight sided (and that's what's making it look spidery to me and much less pleasing than lots of the examples I've seen of writing in PMC). Its also so sharp that its quite hard to trace over the same line twice. Any recommendations on a better tool that I could use to go over the letters? I think comparing closely, I'm shooting for a slightly wider line with more of a curved profile as its cut into the clay?

Obviously all the example pictures I'm looking at of pendants with beautiful letters are finished - so the other thing I wondered is could it actually be the firing / polishing etc that 'softens' the lettering a bit and as such I shouldn't worry now?

[Amy]

Hi faith,
I have made a lot of personalised items with silver clay but I have used letter stamps/ to punch the letters. Is it a hand engraved look you are going for ? There are quite a lot of font styles (especially from ImpressArt) and some are in a more cursive script like handwriting?
Hope I've not misunderstood,
Amy

[Amy]

Hi faith,
I have made quite a lot of personalised items with silver clay but I have used letter stamps/ to punch the letters. Is it a hand engraved look you are going for ? There are quite a lot of font styles (especially from ImpressArt) and some are in a more cursive script like handwriting?
Hope I've not misunderstood,
Amy

[Dennis]

Dear Faith,
Before embarking on an unfamiliar project, it is best to make a number of test pieces with cheaper material, until you are satisfied with the result.

Lettering on wet clay can be made by pressing in letter stamps. On dried clay you can use various pointed needles, or even a tiny ball burr. You must try them all and decide what works for you. Maybe you are pushing the point to get a feathery effect when it would be better to scrape. Maybe the clay is still too soft and needs to harden more.

After firing you can also brighten the lettering with a rotating burr, or an old burr with the head broken off and the tip smoothed to make a burnisher.

Be assured that we all invest time and money in learning a new craft. Dennis.

[Faith]

Thanks Dennis and Amy,
Unfortunately this was a project where I incorrectly assessed the tricky bits to practice first, but its all useful lessons learnt :)
I'm fairly confident that the pendant I'm trying to match has hand engraved lettering (mainly because repeated letters aren't the same) so I'll try to tidy up the letters as you suggest Dennis - many thanks for the tiny burnisher tip - I would never have thought of that!
Faith