[Jewelry making - Article 00705] - Re: [Orchid] Article: Minimal Metalsmithing

[Carla M. Fox]

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    First, much thanks to Orchid for letting us hash all this stuff out. 

    To Lisa and others who wonder why my insistence on stamping metal
    clay-mc, sintered etc. 

    It is a different material with different characteristics when
    finished. It is more porous, harder to solder on, less weight by
    volume, and in the hands of the inexperience it can fall apart.
    Milled fine silver will not fall apart. It make fatigue and break or
    the solders may fail but it won't fall apart. 

    I am a show jeweler. I sell moderately expensive jewelry to total
    strangers who TRUST my work to stand up to years of wearing. Also
    many of them will never see me again. So if by chance they should
    have a piece break they can take it to a local jeweler for repair.
    That last part is why I don't ever use low heat solder and try to
    solder up my pieces in a logical progression so a repair can be made
    without ruining the whole piece. Of course, whenever possible
    customers still have my card & I will repair anything I've made
    usually for free-even when its the customer's fault. (That all said
    I almost never repair my work because my fabrication fails. Knock on
    wood!) 

    So I am very worried that inferiorly made metal clay pieces may
    cause ME to lose the TRUST of my potential customers. I do bristle
    when someone asks if my tediously etched & formed pieces, are pmc.
    But I also worry that if they have purchased some poorly fired pmc
    piece they may attach their bad feelings about it to my hard fought
    fabricated pieces. 

    I also feel for customers & the hapless repair jeweler who must try
    to repair a "fine silver" piece only to find it's metal clay and
    can't be done in a traditional fashion. 

    And to that lovely cuff pmc bracelet. Fabricated cuff bracelets can
    be flex, bent, torqued and still remain in one piece. Can a pmc
    version of a cuff bracelet take that same kind of flexing? Will it
    fatigue and break or be stronger for it as forged cuffs are? Again
    if the bracelet is not stamped metal clay someone may use it in a way
    the material can't take and a broken bracelet will result. 

    And if there is so much pride in the metal clay why not stamp it
    proudly as metal clay? Why the resistance? 

    These are the questions I am asking. I'd like to hear the answers.
    These are my concerns, this is why I think it is imperative that
    metal clay object be stamped metal clay. To not stamp it as such is
    unethical in my opinion. 

    Carla 

    PS Another thought. To protect the trust I want my customers to have
    in my work, should I place a sign in my display saying that none of
    my work is made of pmc, art clay, or other metal clay products? Then
    if someone asks why, do I explain my reservations about the products?
    I feel this is not a good thing to do, but without answers to some of
    my questions, my reservations about metal clay producing durable/
    repairable metal objects remains. Once trust is lost it is almost
    impossible to retrieve. 

 
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