Experimenting with GOLD and SILVER

Hi Heather

I have just read you message, in the news group. I am a designer jeweller,
and might be able to help with the things you are trying to do.

You can melt silver and gold quite easily with a small crucible and a hand
torch, as long as you don't try to melt too much at once. Put the metal
with the flux into the crucible and heat it with the torch. The trick is to
keep the flame moving over the metal all the time so that the whole of the
metal heats up gradually.

When the metal has melted, pour it out carefully into a metal mould and once
it has cooled you can put it into the pickle to clean it before starting to
work it.

You can buy crucibles from "Cooksons" / "Exchange Findings".

Kind regards

Hela Bonnell
..
----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Coleman"
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.jewelry
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2004 5:02 AM
Subject: Experimenting with GOLD and SILVER




Hello anyone out there.
My name is Heather and I'm an artist, mainly working in clay but have
always wanted to dabble a bit in gold and silver work. I live in
Devonshire in England.
While I did do some about 25 years ago my brain seems to have
forgotten
all the basic stuff so I thought I would do some research on the
internet before I take the plunge.
At this time I am buying gold in various forms to enjoy, some panned
nuggets from America, some very small bullion bars etc and also buy
gold
and silver from Cooksons who I understand are one of the main UK
suppliers of materials.
Last night I placed a little thimble sized crucible in my huge pottery
kiln and fired it with about 2 grams of gold grain (panned material
from
Idaho USA).
I think I fired to about 1160 deg C for my pots which were all fine.
My
crucible fell to bits but I was left with a small blob of shining gold
which I then took and beat into a sheet... that was a thrill :-)
Also I did the same with some scrap silver but the crucible shattered
and the silver got lost into the clay batt below.
I used some borax powder that I got from Cooksons to flux things but I
dunno if I was meant to put a small amount in or a lot... I put about
a
teaspoon of it in with the silver and a lot less in the gold. The
borax
had fired into a sort of blue/green glaze and coated the crucibles,
what
was left of them.
Anyway, my gold experiment worked and I plan to move on to a larger
amount so that I can beat a sheet of it into a pendant to wear with my
own design.
So generally I was wondering... is there anyone out there who fancies
chatting with me either through this group or directly about this sort
of thing so that I can learn how to do it properly. I hope to melt
scrap
silver and beat it into sheets or just cast it into ingots with a
design
on the face.
Also I plan to buy sheet silver to beat as well. I will need to know
the
basic tools and methods of doing this.
Does anyone know of a supplier in the UK of crucibles of small
capacity.
Does anyone know of a supplier of Bronze and Nickel-Silver in the UK.
Cooksons do not appear to do this.
Any help for a fluffy blonde artist would be very much appreciated :-)
Thanks
Heather