Precious Metal Clay in CNC.

[ART]

Hi Guys:

  I was asked by a couple of people who knew I was playing while on vacation with PMC. (Precious metal clay. ), to post some photos and explanations..OK.. here goes. :-)

PMC is a clay which when fired in a kiln turns into .999 fine silver or 24Ct gold (depending on the type of clay. Gold of course is expensive, but silver is about $40.00 for enough to do 2 pendents of
this size. )

  Heres a few photos of the build of a pendent. The photos show a mould I cut into wax, I then pressed the clay into the wax mould, and melted the wax off it when it dried.
After melting the wax off the dried clay, I then fired it at 1270F for 10 minutes. Out comes a .999 silver pendent as shown in the final photo. I find it a bit coarse, but it does polish up nice when buffed,
most silver jewelry is .95 silver and has 5% copper added for strength and gloss, but this PMC stuff is kinda fun to play with, and I think with practice it can be used to make
jewelery for fun that is pretty customised.  It took 30 minutes to cut the mould from the wax, 1 minute to press the clay into the mould, 1 day to dry, and 40 minutes to fire in the kiln..
All in all, it was fun to use MAch3 for an interesting project involving my mill, and my kiln..

Regards,
Art
 

   

[creativeconversion]

Shut up!! you've got to tell me where I can get some of this clay? I nearly wet myself when I saw this
More info pleeese (what else are you hiding from us ?)
Barry

[ART]

Hi Barry:

PMC clay was invented 10 years ago by Mitsubishi . It comes in many temp ranges and types. You can even fire some types in an oven.
DO a google for "PMC Clay". I used PMC3 , but there are many types..  All you need is the ability to cut wax (any system will do that very fast and accuratley but you want machining wax. (Cheap on Ebay)..

Art

[ynneb]

Whats with the scabby sized pictures ? We want to see detail


Here is a link about the clay http://www.silver-clay.com/

[ART]

Scabby Camera.. :-) , its a webcam, I dont have a digital that will zoom in very well, My digital is pretty old.. I guess I better start looking for a proper 6MP camera.. just to keep
picky bastards like yourself happy. :-) ..LOL..


Art

[ynneb]