Argentium finishing

I've been playing around with some argentium this week. So far so good! I've started on some lovely earrings but just now realised that I need to finish them in a different way to sterling. Oven heat them, ultrasonic cleaners, tumbling...all new to me! Could someone please point me in the right direction and give me a simple run down of what I need to do in order to finish my pieces? I currently don't have an ultrasonic cleaner OR tumbler. Do i need both or with one do the job? As you can tell, I'm very new. Thank you for any help.

Sophie

Hi Sophie,
The Argentium Silver website has scads of information I found helpful. Also designer and jewelry-maker Ronda Coryell, an expert with Argentium, has good info.

Patricia

You do not need to oven heat to harden you can use conventional methods oven heating is very convenient, same with ultrasonic cleaners you can use a tooth brush warm water and soap, again ultrasonic is more convenient, all you need is to follow conventional polishing techniques as you would with Sterling Silver.
Tumbler polishing in my opinion will not produce the high quality finish that hand polishing will achieve, I only ever use the tumbler as a pre-polish stage.

I agree with China, and I work with Argentium quite a lot nowadays.

A cheap electric toothbrush and normal washing up liquid will suffice in lieu of an ultrasonic, and oven heating / hardening works fine. Even a cheapish kiln will suffice for the work hardening if you dont fancy using your domestic oven.

I never use a tumbler myself, so cant really comment on that aspect. Work with Argentium as you would sterling silver, with the exception being the fusing / soldering / annealing elements.

Cheers,

Nick