What is
Precious Metal Clay?
Metal Clay is silver, gold, bronze, copper or steel in a
clay form. Precious Metal Clay, or PMC, is specifically fine
silver or gold. It is a fascinating material that can be shaped,
textured and formed into beautiful jewelry and sculpture.
You are limited only by your imagination and skill level.
Once formed into the desired shape, the metal clay is
heated to scintering temperatures where the organic binders
burn off and the metal particles fuse into a solid piece of precious metal.
For those of you who have never worked with Precious
Metal Clay, you will find that there are certain terms and
phrases unique to the PMC community. For example, when rolling out a sheet of PMC (in Step 1), the goal is to obtain
a uniform thickness. It is common to use playing cards for
this purpose.
The cards are thin, which allows for very small, incremental
changes in the thickness of the clay sheet to be rolled out.
Hence, you will see instructions, such as "Roll a sheet four
or five cards thick." This means that you should stack either
four or five cards on each side of your lump of clay that is
to be rolled out.
Once you have rolled out the clay, using the cards as a
guide, you will have a uniform thickness in your piece. Five
cards is the equivalent of 1.5 mm thickness, before firing.
During the firing process the PMC will shrink in length, width and thickness. There are three different types of silver PMC.
The following project is a pendant made from PMC+ (PMC Plus). This formulation has an approximate 12% shrinkage
rate when fired. So, be sure to take that into consideration
when you design your pendant.
Please check out the list of tools and supplies below before
starting this project. Each item listed is clickable for more information and a purchase link.
If you already have the materials on hand, then just click
on the number one tab above to create your very own, one
of a kind, fine silver enameled pendant.
Tools and Supplies