After a summer of travelling round the UK doing craft fairs, finally I am back at my laptop ready to do another blog post. I have been continuing my experiments with Argentium silver, first I did some etching. I stuck some Argentium onto some parcel tape and used stopout varnish to draw some lines
then I used 50% nitric acid to etch the design
then I used a brass brush with soapy water to polish it
I used a brass brush and soapy water to give a satin finish.
Then I did some granulation, with Argentium granules onto Argentium sheet
1 was successful granulation, as was 3, but 2 was where I got the granules too hot and they started to melt. I was experimenting using a firebrick and a charcoal block, didn’t seem to make much difference.
This picture shows the granulation again, but also where I have sawn out some 0.5mm leaf shapes, and have fused them onto some 0.5mm sheet. This went really well, and I have used this technique in lots of my new Argentium pieces.
Some of my next experiments will involve fusing 18ct gold granules onto Argentium, and more complicated fusing pieces.
Annette's silver blog 