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Is it possible to do glass fusion in a sterling silver findings like a bezel cup or would that incompatible?

You can use 'Art Clay Silver' to mould a bezel or even a whole ring around a piece of already fused glass.

Hi Elizabeth!

Have you actually tried this yourself? The reason I ask is, I was looking into using Art Clay Silver for the same purpose, to form it as a bezel and backing mount around a glass pendant and put the glass and clay silver back into the kiln.

However, I looked through two different books on metal clay and neither book referred to this. Also, the silver clay shrinks after firing, so it seems that perhaps the silver will split apart or something, or the glass may be affected. If you make the silver bezel and mount larger, how do you figure out how much larger to make it?

Cheers,
Suzan

pmc has 2 basic types. One has a 10% shrink rate, the other has a 20% rate. I beleive the 20% one (it's called PMC 3, I think) is used mostly for application to fused glass pieces to be fired pretty hot. More info available, great Q&A and chat place at:

http://www.pmcguild.com/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi

Keep us posted on your edeavors. I've got it on my list of things I gotta try, have all material on hand.....
Yo

Suzan wrote:Hi Elizabeth!

Have you actually tried this yourself? The reason I ask is, I was looking into using Art Clay Silver for the same purpose, to form it as a bezel and backing mount around a glass pendant and put the glass and clay silver back into the kiln.

However, I looked through two different books on metal clay and neither book referred to this. Also, the silver clay shrinks after firing, so it seems that perhaps the silver will split apart or something, or the glass may be affected. If you make the silver bezel and mount larger, how do you figure out how much larger to make it?

Cheers,
Suzan

Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metalclay/

Lots of friendly folks who do this kind of thing all the time.

- Paul

I know you can use PMC to create a bezel around glass or another lapidary material then fire at a low temp to create a finding. I wanted to know if someone could buy a sterling silver bezel cup from a company like Rio Grande-
put your glass into the cup then do a full fusion. I was thinking the shrinkage rate would be different between the two materials and that would cause the glass to crack. Just curious to know if anyone's done this before. I am going to try it in the future.

Steve

Steve Eshbaugh wrote:I know you can use PMC to create a bezel around glass or another lapidary material then fire at a low temp to create a finding. I wanted to know if someone could buy a sterling silver bezel cup from a company like Rio Grande-
put your glass into the cup then do a full fusion. I was thinking the shrinkage rate would be different between the two materials and that would cause the glass to crack. Just curious to know if anyone's done this before. I am going to try it in the future.

Steve

Hi Steve,
I think you will find that the heat of the kiln will cause the sterling to oxidize, that alone will cause problems. The copper in the sterling is the culprit.
If your finding was fine silver that would minimize the oxidation problem. Silver staining could still be a problem, at least with some glass (I don't know which glass is ok and which will cause problems).
With no experience attempting to fuse glass in silver, I'll leave that answer to someone else or better yet to your experiments.
Regards,
Duane

Duane: You raise an interesting point. I never really thought of that since a lot of manufacturers are making findings with anti tarnish properties which in turn is made by adding silica among other elements- in the casting process. This acts as as anti oxident.. While this does prevent tarnishing at normal temperatures, It will be interesting to see what happens in a kiln.

Stay tuned

Steve

Steve ~
I found this post on http://www.ganoksin.com regarding fine silver bezel cups. I am not sure of the sizes that are available but it's certainly worth looking into. Hope this is helpful.

"...Hello Orchidland, I just got a flyer of new products from Rio
Grande. Hooray! They have fine silver bezel cups available. Some
time back several of us expressed the wish for them to be
commercially made. The wish has come true. Not only will these
little goodies make creating bezels easier, but they are great for
use with PMC..."

~Sonje in snowy Maine

Sonje: Thanks for the information. I will check this out.


Steve

Sterling becomes brittle upon firing at the glass fusing rates, more important info than the darkening color issue..

When making a bezel in PMC, any size.. do this:

make a plug out of plaster, nice cheap plaster, the same size as the cabochon, roll the clay around the bezel, leaving space between the plaster and the clay.. fire.. the clay will shrink to the right size, first in the diameter range and then in the thickness range.. this was done long before PMC3... remove the plaster after firing... prepare the silver properly, (shine it up, tumble, etc).. insert cab.. voila! There are lots of silver clay books that show this..

Hope this helps a lot!
Candy

Candy: Thanks for the information. It's very helpful. However you raise another point. Firing PMC in a kiln used for glass fusion. Have you had any problems with discoloration on the glass? I've read accounts where
people who do both PMC and Glass in the same kiln find colored specks on the glass due to the dual usage. I would imagine this comes from the silver particles left over from the firing of the PMC.

Steve

Steve, look under the other PMC and such headings.. I put a long (well for me) explanation/experience observation on there.. if you can't find it, I'll post here..just let me know
Candy

Hi Steve, I fire a fair amount of PMC with my glass. I always use thinfire under the piece and I have a separate kiln shelf that I use just for PMC/glass firings. I have not had any trouble with silver staining on the glass with this method. I also only use PMC3 and the minimal firing temp of 1100 for 30 min. I do, however, get some silver staining on some colors of glass next to the PMC- pink is the worst culprit. Hope this info helps.

JJ: After reading your comment (among others)and checking through the archives- there probably isn't much of a problem with discoloration, as long as I stay away from certain colors. I was concerned enough to the point where I was thinking of constructing a small box using low density fiberboard to contain the silver fumes given off when firing silver. This was going to be a precaution just to keep the main chamber silver free so I could fire glass without any fear of contamination. It looks as though I may not have anything to worry about but I still might try the "box" just as a test.

Steve

JJ: After reading your comment (among others)and checking through the archives- there probably isn't much of a problem with discoloration, as long as I stay away from certain colors. I was concerned enough to the point where I was thinking of constructing a small box using low density fiberboard to contain the silver fumes given off when firing silver. This was going to be a precaution just to keep the main chamber silver free so I could fire glass without any fear of contamination. It looks as though I may not have anything to worry about but I still might try the "box" just as a test.

Steve