Silver Art Clay Help

[sparkleprints]

Hi

I am new to Art Clay and could do with some help!

I fired a piece of Silver Art Clay and afterwards it cracked through the middle, and eventually snapped in two when I was trying to polish off and salvage. Is there anything that can be done with what is now 'scrap' art clay?

Also, what kind of solder to people use to solder a piece of Art Clay to sterling silver? I tried hard, with borax, but it just wouldn't fuse?! What am I doing wrong?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Emma

[Jasmin]

Hello Emma, I had a piece crack when I made it too thin and once when I did not dry it long enough. Some shapes are also more prone to snapping, such as long thin shapes, and rings can be a little tricky. But more often than not the problem is caused by a piece that is too thin to start with that gets even thinner once fired and is then too fragile to withstand polishing. How thick was your piece? do you think it dried for long enough? At any rate, all is not lost - you can rejoin and re-fire the two parts or you can solder the parts. Try both before scrapping anything!

I would first try re-joining the pieces. You can either use shop bought Art Clay Silver Oil Paste or make your own Lavender Paste and use this to join the two pieces and refire at 800 degrees. Both are great at joining fired pieces and the only difference is that you buy one in the shops and you make the other one though it smells very strong so it helps if you are into lavender! To make lavender paste, you need to mix some paste or scraps of clean unfired clay with lavender essential oil and maybe a drop or two of water until you get a smooth sticky paste. There's no exact formula I can give you but you'll get a feel of it as you go. Roughen up the joint areas slightly and brush the paste generously onto both joints, fix it into position using any supports you need and let it dry thoroughly - oil/lavender paste takes longer to dry than normal paste. When dry clean the edges but be careful as the piece is very fragile at this stage and could break along the same lines - remember also that the oil paste will also shrink so it might be advisable to overdo the paste a little bit and file it down once it's fired. Then just refire.

Soldering can be done, but in contrast to the paste method above, to join two pieces of fired silver clay you need to ensure that the joints are burnished thoroughly. Fired silver clay is porous so the solder tends to be absorbed into the piece unless you first burnish the edges to be joined. Also if I don't have other soldering to do later on, I might use an easy solder, in fact I often use the ready mixed solder paste in the syringes as you don't need separate flux and it's easier for me to direct the solder exactly to where it's needed - but I doubt the type of solder used would make a difference here.

Depending on the item, you could also fuse the two pieces together but that can be quite tricky and you have to be best friends with your torch... I try to avoid it! one for pros I think.

Anyway, ramble over, I hope this helps - let me know how you get on!

Jasmin

[Joe]

To answer your soldering question - you're using what I use: hard solder and borax. It does work, honest!

Solder doesn't fuse in the same sense that fine silver does - it melts and flows over the joint. Two things commonly go wrong:

1) it doesn't melt - nothing hot enough.

2) it doesn't flow - dirty joint or things being joined not hot enough.

If the first attempt seems off, it's wise to stop and clean everything off; pickle it and sand the sterling. Be sure to clean the solder too before cutting the paillon and don't touch it! The approved technique of placing the paillon with the flux brush will also flux the solder which helps.

As Jasmin says - do try rescuing your piece either by soldering or fusing with more clay. If your piece gets beyond rescue, try flattening it with a hammer! It might tell you something about how well fired it was which might give clues about the splitting.... and a nice flat, hammer-textured piece of fine silver is a great base for making something else with it!