Tip for using dry copper clay powder to make sterling silver metal clay...

With so much buzz about the article by the staff at the Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery and their experiments to create Sterling Silver Metal Clay--we knew the metal clay world would be excited!

Hadar Jacobson, as many of you know, has her own line of metal clays, and she was eager to try the experiments done by the MCSJ and to add to the information available to metal clay artists. Hadar shows that she was able to use the recipe created by Lisa Cain and her team--with Hadar's ClayTM Quick Fire Copper with PMC to make sterling silver metal clay.  The part that intrigued us at MCAM is the great tip Hadar gave to ensure that your mixes are equal if using a dry clay and a wet clay. 

The following is an excerpt from Hadar's blog.  Thanks for letting us share your information. ~MCAM

"Congratulations to UK metal clay artists on making silver clay that can be Hallmarked 925 silver! I was glad to hear about this via email while teaching in Ohio, and couldn’t wait to read the article in Metal Clay Artist Magazine. I was surprised to read, though, that the testers had no success with my clay. So, for my customers in the UK, I tried. I made it with PMC+, since that’s what I had at the moment." 

"So why didn’t it work in the UK? My only guess is that the testers may have used my Traditional Copper powder, not the Quick-fire version. 

I also have a suggestion for more accurate measuring. When the two clays are mixed with water, there is no way to compare the amount of water in them. For example, one of the clays may be dryer than the other, and will weigh less than it would have if it were as moist as the other clay. Dry the silver clay that you are about to use, until it contains no water at all. With a dedicated coffee grinder, grind it to a powder. Then weigh the powdered silver and the Quick-fire Copper powder and mix them together. Then add water to the mix.

In any case, I am very happy for you over there on the other side of the pond! Hope to meet you again sometime!"

~Hadar Jacobson

Full blog post can be found at: http://artinsilver.com/blog/