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Silver Clay and Doming punches
Hi everyone, I'm after a bit of advice as I'd like to buy a Doming punch to shape little silver clay flowers, as I'm having problems getting uniform shapes drying my clay over Doming moulds. Should I buy a steel or wooden block and punches? I understand steel blocks can mark the silver, whereas wooden blocks are softer and won't, is this true? Does anyone have any experience with metal clay and Doming blocks?
Also, I can only seem to find larger wooden blocks and punches, and no tiny ones, can anyone help?!
Many thanks!
Charlotte
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I have no idea whether you can dome fired clay, but for safely doming textured sterling, the best compromise is a brass doming block used with wooden punches and a soft hammer, such as hide, resin, or wood.
However if you are set on a wooden doming block, there is plenty of room near the corners to make small dish shapes with a variety of ball burrs. For small punches, thin sticks or dowels can easily be cut to size and filed round at the ends. Dennis.
Last edited by Dennis; 19-11-2015 at 11:44 PM.
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I've not used clay often but would you not be forming the clay before firing therefore in its soft clay form rather than doming into fired clay which like Dennis I'm not sure you can do?
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Silver clay fired long and hot (900 deg C for 2 hours) yields fine silver that can be shaped using doming punches, just like fine silver in sheet form.
However, as fine silver is softer than sterling silver, using a wooden doming block and punch is advisable on textured pieces to prevent distortion of the texture.
Last edited by vsilvered; 20-11-2015 at 02:05 AM.
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Have you thought about custom-making your own domes and other shapes using poymorph? See recent thread:
http://www.cooksongold.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7277
I imagine it would be good for forming the unfired clay as well as for finished pieces.
Alan
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I also think it would be much better to form them before firing, easy done and you don't need to do the extra work of doming after firing, which will be quite fiddly with small shapes.
You could drill large holes in a piece of wood that can hold small balls the size of the domes you want (you could glue them in place if they move too much perhaps, the balls that is!), then dry the clay onto those, and then fire the silver domes on a fibre blanket.
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