[Jewelry making - Article 00996] - Re: [Orchid] Argentium in at Rio Grande!

[Zen Sojourner]

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>         I understand that Hoover & Strong (www.hooverandstrong.com/)
>     have it. Don't know pricing, etc, so you're probably best off
>     contacting them directly. 

    Don't get it from them, they practice line item pricing (eg you
    can't add up all the silver you buy to get the quantity discount by
    weight). 

    Go with Rio Grande, they have the most variety as well as giving you
    the quantity discount for ALL your silver, argentium, sterling, and
    fine, all added together. 

>         Someone else was speculating on the degree to which Argentium
>     Sterling (AS) would harden in a step down from 26 to 28 g. That's
>     about a 26% reduction which would, in my experience, increase the
>     hardness a bit but not a lot. 

    That was me, and that was my guess. Starting from dead soft. Or
    extra-dead-soft, which apparently you can get by asking for it when
    you order.  Don't know if they'll charge you extra for that, but it'd
    be worth it to get it super-annealed to start with if you need to
    draw it down and don't have a torch so you can anneal it yourself.
    Then it'll be even softer after you do the one draw-down. 

    Sojourner 

    Who forgot once again to twist the wire for my studs so I ended up
    trying to burnish them hard after tumbling didn't work-harden them
    enough. Yes, Argentium really DOES work harden much more slowly
    than sterling - those were Argentium studs! 

    Maybe I should just throw it all in the oven and precip-harden it.
    (Pattern wire is not available in Argentium, and I don't have a
    rolling mill, so I made a bunch of earrings using sterling pattern
    wire and argentium round wire for studs last week - nearly all of my
    round wire stock is Argentium.....) 


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