Heat Hardened Argentium Sterling® Silver

I am amazed at how hard Argentium Sterling® Silver turns when it is heat hardened. Last week I made a beautiful turquoise ring. The ring was made so that it could be adjustable. After hardening, I realized the ring was no longer adjustable. Just another one of those things that needs to be kept in mind when working with Argentium Sterling®. Because the properties of Argentium are so different, I have trying to treat Argentium Sterling as though it is a totally different metal, rather than comparing it with standard Sterling Silver. The two metals have very different properties. Standard Sterling conducts heat well, AS does not. Oxygen must be kept away from standard Sterling silver. Oxygen is desirable when working with AS. The melting temperatures are different. The way the metal reacts when heated is different. Working with AS is not that hard, it’s just different.

Argentium® Soldering problems

I've been having some problems using the Argentium® solders. I tried just about everything I could think of. I made sure the surfaces matched well. I made sure my silver was clean and scrubbed it down with steel wool. I tried several types of flux. My easy and medium solders worked just fine. It's taken me a couple of weeks to figure it out. I simply needed to clean the solder itself. I started with soap and water and then I scrubbed it with steel wool. Works great now.

Argentium projects update

It's been quite a while since I made the pendant and the cast ring. I am happy to say that each are wearing quite well. There has been no signs of tarnish on the ring or the pendant. We have noticed considerably few scratches on the ring and the scratches that are there are quite shallow. Good news!

Argentium Solder has Arrived!!!

I finally was able to get some Argentium solder! Now it’s time to get back to work. Can’t wait to give it a try. I got the following:

Hard = 1355 F
Medium = 1319 F
Easy = 1253 F

Note that the flow temperatures seem to be quite a bit lower than that of regular Sterling solder.

Argentium - Dim the lights!!!

From the picture above you can see I had a little trouble today. I was annealing a piece of Argentium to prepare it for hammering. I was working in fairly strong light and thought the piece had cooled sufficiently to allow me to quench it in water….Wrong! As you can see, the results were disastrous. Oh well, another piece to be used in casting or fusing. The next piece I tried to anneal I allowed to cool a bit more and had no problems. Working in dim light, and waiting for the red glow to almost go away is a much safer approach to the problem. The picture of the Argentium above was taken right after it was quenched. Note the lack of tarnish or firescale that you would see on standard Sterling.
My wife wore the pendant shown in my last posting to the Tombstone, AZ Gem and Mineral show Tombstone's Gem & Mineral Show this weekend. The piece attracted a lot of attention. There was quite a bit of interest shown, not only in the piece, but also in Argentium.