{"id":22,"date":"2010-02-19T16:40:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T16:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primitive.userblogs.ganoksin.coms\/?p=22"},"modified":"2010-02-19T16:40:12","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T16:40:12","slug":"workshop-basics-which-metals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/primitive\/2010\/02\/19\/workshop-basics-which-metals\/","title":{"rendered":"Workshop Basics: Which metals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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According to Cookson<\/a>, the top melting point for stirling silver<\/a> is 890C, while fine silver is a bit higher. In the immediate future I will be working with stirling, even if it is not a historical alloy, because I have access to plenty of scrap metal at cheap prices. Because I work in the modern jewellery trade, I may be able to purchase old silver items from customers who bring in scrap, although this will depend, case-by-case, on the permission of my father. As an aside, I wonder if silver was ever hot-forged during the middle ages? A page about Garry Noffke<\/a> on Ganoksin says that he uses a special alloy to hot-forge because sterling silver didn’t work too well. Exploring historical silver alloys will be a post in itself, I think.<\/p>\n

Ideally, I’d love to work with gold, but cost will simply make this prohibitive for experimental purchases. Where I will be able to work with gold is through my modern jewellery employment, by integrating older casting techniques to contemporary work. In this case, I’m likely to be using 18ct yellow gold, as this is the main material used by the business (well, we use a lot of platinum, but I don’t think that platinum was used until much later in history). I won’t need to use gold at my home workshop, but for reference, it’s top melting point is 960C<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The final alloy that I might use is pewter, which has a much lower melting point<\/a>; according to Wikipedia, this is between 170C and 230C. I’d only be using this if I failed with everything else, so I’ll leave discussing it until I actually need to do it.<\/p>\n

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One further material is relevant when it comes to jewellery \u2013 ceramics. Whether for crucibles, moulds or for components of furnaces, I’ll need to use clay and similar materials, so the temperature of my furnace will need to reflect that. Campots arcaeoceramics<\/a> (sp?) seems to suggest firing temperatures of up to 1000C, which seems to be the same range as jewellery. Convenient? Perhaps. But maybe this effected the\u00a0 way that pottery and jewellery developed.<\/p>\n

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So, I need fuel and a furnace that can reach 1000C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"