Hi All,

I've not done any silver clay work yet. Most of my jewellery so far is in traditional metal working techniques. I've booked onto a silver clay class in a few weeks, and decided to get a book from the library to read first. It was one by Tim McCreight, and included a "50 projects" section.

One of the projects involved making a silver clay bead, firing it, dipping in a raku glaze for ceramics, firing again to melt the glaze, and then using the standard raku techniques of cooling in sawdust or similar.

It looked amazing, and this is something I am interested in trying... has anyone done it? I've done some searches, and only found one other website discussing doing this, again, for silver clay.

My main question is - does it need to be silver clay? Surely, since the steps involved firing the bead first before glazing, it is then just fine silver, so any silver piece could be treated in the same way?

Interested in hearing any experiences people have had with this!

Does anyone know how raku glazes differ from enamel? I've done raku firing of ceramics once, but didn't really pay too much attention to the glazes.