Making silver clay

During the pass summer (more as a academic exercise), we have been experimenting with different types of particulate silver (e.g. particulate shapes and sizes) in combination with different types of known organic binders and organic moisture retardents. After a few different approaches we believe we have several forumulations which are close to ACS and PMC w.r.t firing temperature and burn times and usability. During this exercise we have found the following:

Both ACS and PMC have similiar formulations (there appear to be less than 5 ingredients which comprise both formulations).

Making your own silver clay is not difficult the ingredients are available commercially.

We have found that the sequence in which the materials are mixed in (and obvivously the ratios) and the method of mixing are the two critical issues which determine a sucessful and usable silver clay mixture.

It appears to be very cost effective to mix your own silver clay given the existing spot price for silver (about 9.20 per ounce). Even factoring the price for silver powder (which is usually purchased in .5 kg and  1 kg increments) and the rest of the ingredients it is still very cost effective.

[wyndham]

Please let me know what directiom to go in this developement.
wyn@carolina.net
I would believe that one of the ingredients is cmc gum as a binder. Where does one get silver powder?
thanks wyndham

[Metalman]

Mix MAster,
This is great - I have seen some of your posts.
I have done some traditional japanese paper making and have always though that the binder was related to the emulsifyers used there. While the tradional material is from the inner bark of various willow and mulberry varieties, it is much like methylcellulose. This seems to be similar to your 'Peridur Powder', yes?? Is your materials list from a full bore chemical analysis?
I am quite curious about the Polyolefin Powder - this will burn away, out of the matrix of the silver completely?  I have seen very high power microscopic images of the silver after firing and there doesn't seem to be anything but silver particulate there.
Tell us more

I'm not sure about the methylcellulose and some of the natural variants. We looked at peridur as it dissolves quite easily, burns clean and provides a BTU value for sintering. The polyolefin does basically the same thing as peridur but provides a better binding property than peridur (probably due  it being more of a colloidal solution rather than the dissolved mixture like peridur). While we did not do a GC/MS or ICAP analysis on the clay, we did look at it under a TEM, which allowed use to see the silver particles and a particulate binder. We also knew that there are only a few binders which burn cleanly, are non-toxic and provide a btu value for sintering (e.g. little ash) and do not react with silver.
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Mix MAster,
This is great - I have seen some of your posts.
I have done some traditional japanese paper making and have always though that the binder was related to the emulsifyers used there. While the tradional material is from the inner bark of various willow and mulberry varieties, it is much like methylcellulose. This seems to be similar to your 'Peridur Powder', yes?? Is your materials list from a full bore chemical analysis?
I am quite curious about the Polyolefin Powder - this will burn away, out of the matrix of the silver completely?  I have seen very high power microscopic images of the silver after firing and there doesn't seem to be anything but silver particulate there.
Tell us more

[Metalman]

Thanks once again.  Can you use these same additives with glass particulates to have a glass clay?
I have been studying a bit on the sintering event in other materials such as ceramics and glass.

This is an interesting question, we have tried the same binding agents with other metallic powders (Ti, Stainless Steel etc.) and have had quite a bit of success. Glass powder would be challenge due to its high MT.

We do have some Quartz powder (MT = 2900 F) in our lab which we could try. I imagine that we would have to add a retardant agent to allow the binders to burn more slowly and hence evenly at the higher temperature. We've have to play around with this concept a bit.



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Thanks once again.  Can you use these same additives with glass particulates to have a glass clay?
I have been studying a bit on the sintering event in other materials such as ceramics and glass.

[Metalman]

I assume MT is melting temp. As I am fascinated by this stuff, the quartz powder experiment at 2900°F will be interesting but I was thinking of the lower temp. 'soft' glasses.  I have fairly fine powdered frits from Bullseye Glass Co. MT would be
in the 1600 to 1700°F range.

If you would like, give me a call at 1-800-366-2156 x 120
we can kick a few of these ideas around

Hey Mix master!

How can I get more info on this topic? What are the ingredients being used? proportions? directions? This is some great work. I am especially interested in other metals that you have utilized also.

If possible you could email me at jjakacjj@yahoo.com.

Thanks

[Metalman]

check this thread down our forum abit - Mixmaster posted his ingredients there
http://www.rings-things.com/cgi-bin....2;t=913