[Jewelry making - Article 00291] - Re: [Orchid] Argentium Experimentation

[Trevor F]

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>     In a nut shell, if you want your germanium to be tarnish resistant,
>     heat treat it when all polishing/sanding is finished. 

Hello Thackeray,

    While I would agree that this recommendation is the "be safe" way to
    go I thought it might also be worth mentioning a few things I've seen
    related to how thick and hardy the surface of fully heat treated
    Argentium Silver (AS) can be. 

    In my spoon project I could took a piece of heat treated AS and
    deformed it by as much as 50% or more in a single go.  It appeared to
    be just as "activated" at the end of that deformation as it was to
    begin with. 

    In similar tests the surface of piece of treated AS was heavily filed
    with similar results. 

    From a purely circumstantial POV it looked to me as if the
    "activated" skin of the metal was as much as one millimeter or more
    thick. Since much of our material isn't even that thick to begin with
    it is conceivable that the metal could --after full and repeated heat
    treatments-- be activated completely through. 

    In my work the only time I have seen "raw" metal appear on a fully
    heat treated piece was when I sliced completely through the metal.
    The edges of the slice needed to be fired in order to attain their
    full firescale, and presumably tarnish, resistance. 

    An example of my basis for this observation can be seen in the
    photos that accompany the "Oxide and annealing footnotes" post on the
    blog
    (http://touchmetal.com/blog/2005/02/oxide-and-annealing-footnotes.html).
    Keep in mind that that metal was cut _after_ it had been heavily
    forged. So if my "1 mm" theory is workable then one can presume that
    I thinned the "skin" by hammering in out, then I sliced through it
    by shearing the edges of the metal off. 

    Of course this is all relative and liberally doused in speculation.
    To be on the safe side, heat it, as you've suggested. But on the
    other hand there's no evidence to indicate that fully heat treated AS
    is in any way "thin skinned". I think my work indicates that that is
    not the case. 

Cheers,
Trevor F.
in The City of Light
www.touchmetal.com

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