Adventures with Silver Clay, Sterling Silver and Pickle!

Fine Silver Earrings

Look!

At these beautiful earrings! They are my first attempt at a stud and butterfly style earring using silver clay, and sterling silver post and butterfly.

First I cut the two hearts out of silver clay, at the same time I made my little roses. When they were both dry I sanded and finished them to smooth out any lumps and bumps. Then using a little silver clay paste I stuck the rose in the centre of the heart. When this had dried I attached the sterling silver post to the back of the earring again using silver clay paste. When totally dry, in this case after placing them on a radiator, on top of playing card for 24 hours (very hi-tech) I checked the earrings and fired them. 

It was quite an adventure for me as I have to use pickle to quench the piece as sterling silver develops fire scale when it is fired. I used a home made version which I found from here...

Silver Clay is created from old medical devices (urgh doesn’t sound quite so glamorous now) such as film X-Rays and the tiny particles of silver are mixed with an organic binder which is burned off during firing, the molecules of silver then ‘stick’ to one another creating a piece of solid fine silver. Fine silver when fired doesn’t develop fire scale (metal discolouration due the oxidisation of copper in sterling silver) so until this project I have never had to use pickle before.
In all honesty it was far less complicated than I ever thought it.

After I had fired the completed piece, and pickled it, I then rinsed it with tap water, dried it and then burnished and polished it as I would any silver clay piece. On these earrings I decided that I would leave the flat heart shape in a brushed metal finish and then highlight the rose detail with an agate burnisher making it shine.

As these were the first experinment, and are not quite perfect (but I like that) I'm keeping these!