I have done quite a few bits of silver clay work. You don't need a kiln for small silver pieces - you can quickly 'torchfire' them with a small butane torch which cost only a few pounds to buy. The gold metal clay needs a higher temperature and is too expensive for me to experiment with! Gold leaf can be applied to the fired silver clay and I have it ready to try 'one day'.
I have never been aware of a smell with it. Yes, it does dry out quickly but you take steps to overcome this - plan what you are going to do before you start, keep the unused clay covered, have a fine mister spray to hand, work in a cool area. Because it's a clay, you can roll it out onto a textured surface such as lace - some of my very first beads were clay rolled out over fine torchon, cut into a rectangle then rolled around a plastic straw to shape them. The seam is joined with 'slip' made from tiny bits of clay and water (a good use for trimmings and even the filings off the unfired items). Torch firing took less than 5 minutes each. Ounce for ounce it is a very expensive way of buying silver, but on the other hand there are things that you can do quickly and easily compared to traditional silver-smithing techniques; to texture sheet silver as I did for my beads needs a rolling mill, then the silver rectangle would have had to be cut out with a saw, carefully rolled (so as to not damage the texture) and finally silver soldered into a cylinder. Lost wax casting type work is another example that comes to mind. I made a pair of cuff- links and a tie pin for DH by making a master design in Fimo, using two part silicone to make a mould from it and then pressing the silver clay into the mould. Once the clay was dry it just popped out ready for a smooth over before firing - about 5 or 10 minutes each piece with the torch. I cheated and bought the cuff link backs and tie pin in sterling silver (fine silver is too soft for these hard working parts) and silver soldered them onto the backs. To do this in 'real' silver I would have needed to make moulds suitable for taking molten silver, and a workshop suitable for doing that type of work. Fired silver clay makes an excellent base for enamelling, which can also be done to a certain extent with a torch, heating the metal from underneath through a trivet. Making a cord out of it is not very practical, although there is now either a new form of clay or an extender to mix in with it (can't remember which) which has a *much* slower drying time. Now it might be feasible to make a cord and therefore lace - but if it is a fine one then it would probably also need a kiln to fire it in unless I was very careful to heat evenly and not too closely with the torch (you have to judge the right point from the colour, glowing red but not bright enough to melt). I still feel that for 'lace', wire is the better, more sensible, cost effective way to go. There are lots of places on the web to look at silver clay work - the early stuff is mostly a bit 'crafty' but it has become more and more sophisticated. Also the US magazine 'Art Jewelry' is an excellent source of ideas and their web site is a good place to look. Jacquie - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
