I’ve been working with Continuum Silver now for a couple of years on a number of projects and it has been a great addition to our choices of white metals. One of the great things about this metal is that it can be heat hardened to roughly the hardness of 14kt white gold. So far my clients that have gone this route have been very happy with the metal and the price.
Jim
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Karen- With Continuum there was no learning curve for me. It doesn’t need
any special treatment. No need to take a six week class and take up 4 1/2
weeks to learn how to use it. It works so easily, fuses beautifully, and
is so strong. The only thing it can’t do well is granulation. I find it far
superior to any other sterling that I have ever used.
I do not work for or represent Stuller. I just love the stuff.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry
-Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com
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OK, I work in South West,Spanish,designs using lots of sheet and
stamping,etc.I like the ability to fuse, less tarnish.I would love to hear
opinuns on best of these new metals for hand fabrication.! Thanks …And
love Idea of Ganok aprons.
Can you get sheet, wire, sizing stock etc in Continuum?
Noël
Noel- Yes you can. I use mostly IT solder on Continuum in addition to
regular silver solders. All of my eyeglasses are done with Continuum and IT
solder. The only lower temp solder I use on them is medium when putting on
the fine little wires for the nose pads.
I love making my eyeglasses out of Continuum. It’s much lighter than gold
or platinum and as strong and springy as 14 kt white gold.
if you have any questions call John Butler or Shan Aithal in the metallurgy
lab at Stuller.
Attached find two pics. One of a pair of glasses when they were in progress
and another on my favorite model Eileen wearing the finished product. She’s
gonna kill me because the photo of her hasn’t been photo shopped yet.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry and have a great holiday season.
-Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com
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Just adding more fuel to the fire between the two :]
I don’t have a lot of experience as a jeweler, but I think many of the differences are nit-picking for personal use (how we work) rather than the customer. I only say this because the average consumer seems to care if it’s true silver or plated and not what grades are available. The fact that one or the other may have better tarnishing effects etc etc etc etc is just an added bonus that “most” people don’t even consider. Of course, this may not be true for high-end jewelry.
James- It does matter even in lower priced jewelry. If one has a line of silver jewelry that is put in numerous galleries and shops, tarnishing while on display is a huge issue. Say a craftsman has 100 pieces scattered around in different galleries. They will have to be shipped back to the maker for periodic polishing and cleaning. Both the cost of shipping and the time spent refinishing can add enough to the cost that will cut not the much slimmer profit margins of lower priced goods.
Most higher end jewelry is in gold and platinum where tarnish is not an issue and the profit margins are not as tight.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
-Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com
I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, just that the grades of silver aren’t something most consumers consider in making a purchase. Most people, in my opinion, just want to know if something is real silver, gold, etc. The anti-tarnishing effects are great as an added bonus we get to pass along, but that is often beyond the scope of people who just know they want something attractive that doesn’t turn their skin green and priced within their means. I’m not disagreeing with you in the least :]
Well educated consumers are what we want. The more they know, the more they appreciate fine work and the more they are willing to spend. We prefer to work with discerning clients. They get that way because we take the time to educate them. We also sell our work only in places that have well educated sales staff who know the art and craftsmanship behind hand made jewelry.
The retailers who still cling to the old biz model of only teaching consumers the 4 Cs are rapidly becoming obsolete. The modern consumer is much more interested in knowing exactly what they are buying. Especially Milennials. -Jo
Interesting discussion…do carry on as you see fit! 
The reason I asked the question is I’m working on my website trying to improve SEO. Many of my pieces are made with Argentium SS wire; and many are cast with DeOx SS or TrueSilver…there may be some Continuum in there as well. I was wondering if it would be useful to use “Argentium Sterling Silver” or “tarnish-resistant Sterling Silver” as a keyword phrase. If people don’t use those terms when searching the web then those keywords won’t help me.
Guess the bottom line is, it’s a cr*p shoot and I’ll just have to test and see how it goes.
Jo - these glasses are amazing! Thanks for sharing. Now I know what my wife is getting for her birthday 
She doesn’t need photoshopping! And the glasses are gorgeous. Still a question about continuum…Does it slump like argentium?
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This is very interesting. I have never made any eyeglasses but I think I would love to give it a try. I wear glasses and would like to make myself a pair. What about the lenses? I could see picking out a frame and lenses from Vimeo and then just tossing the frame.
Does Continuum slump like Argentium?
Short answer - no, it does not.
Long answer - Argentium contains germanium which forms a low melting eutectic solid. So when a sheet of Argentium is supported at two ends and heated to red glow the sheet may appear in tact. It will slump fairly quickly in the middle where the sheet is not supported because inside the sheet localized areas of molten metal form. Continuum does not suffer from such low melting solid phases and hence will not slump upon heating.
Shan Aithal
“Do you think customers care if something is made with Argentium Sterling Silver? Do you think they search for it by name when searching the internet? Do they ask for it in your stores?”
No, no , no ( when I had my store, 24 years, closed in 2015). I have used sterling for 40 years. Someone skilled using tradition sterling, can produce highest quality work, people with less skill can sometimes use the advantage of the qualities Argentium for certain projects, but is not best for all projects.
Tarnish resistance is supposed to be an advantage. Never was an issue with my customers for 30 years prior to invention of tarnish resistant sterlings. Ease of fusibility is an advantage for less experienced metalsmiths, and my opinion, possibility that one would not develop skills to maximize ones creative ability if there is a lazy way to not have to develop the skill and knowledge to use traditional sterling for what it is best for. If a customer has been educated, and they have a desire for what the benefits are, the customer is in effect, believing a story that they were sold on, unless disclosure is made for any trade off. I have heard of yellow discoloration of Argentium jewelry. Just trading one color of tarnish for another color of tarnish…
Your mail sounds like music in my ears Richard.
Working with silver isn’t easy at all Copper and silver are both cheap metals and the combination of both can be expressed in stunning first class jewelry. Fact is that you have to know what you’re doing. Silver is not a forgiving in combnation with copper. The majority of people still don’t know what is causing the formation of cupricoxide, still don’t know the difference between cupricoxide en copperoxide. Working with silver -as a silver or goldsmith- implies understanding the metal.
A person I know wrote me last week to talk about her silversmith education. Her teacher estated that firestain is something you have to deal with when you work with silver, it just happends. That is rubbish! The guy is working with silver on a daily basis for many years!. Well I told her that this statement is completely incorrect. The industry makes an advantage of this problem and came up with argentium because working with the good old stuff is hard, people don’t like to clean their silverware and everybody can produce silver jewelry withhout having trouble of creating firestan.
The art and knwoledge of how to wark with regular sterling silver is going together with the nice warm look of plain old sterling silver.
I’m not against the use of argentium or any other concept of new alloys. I try to learn from all of them but… working and dealing with the problems of regular sterling silver needs understanding of what you’re doing. To me, that’s the differends of being a silversmith or just making silver jewelry.
Some schools don’t like to point this out enough and some people think that they can educate others because they work with silver without knowing what’s realy going on. Arentium is the easy way out to have friestain and can easely be hardened. People don’t like to clean silver anymore and argentium looks like white gold. All of that is reason enough for following the easy way and the industry is the winner.
John- Just make the eyeglasses and have the lens cut for them.
Tim and I don’t have vision or dental insurance so we both make our own
glasses and gold tooth crowns. Now if I could only make my own hearing
aids…
Have fun and make lots of jewelry and medical devices.
-Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com
Hello Nan,
You asked about customers caring about the sterling alloy used in their piece. I do point out the tarnish-resistance of Argentium, but also make the customer aware that it WILL tarnish. Just that it is slower and in my experience, is easier to clean. No one seems aware of the brand, but they do like the idea of less maintenance.
I am a fan of Argentium Sterling (AS) and as I need to restock sheet, wire, etc. I intentionally buy AS. That said, the tarnish-resistant alloys Stuller sells are pretty cool too. Can’t say too much about comparison among the three alloys though as I haven’t played much with the Sterlium and Continuum that I have. That is on the agenda for 2017. (Jo talks about Contiuum sterling, and can weigh in about how it behaves. BTW Jo, love the glasses!) I also really like the AS solders for their color match and flow.
However, there are some specific situations that make me glad to still have some of the standard sterling. When hot, AS is brittle and likes to slump as well. If the piece involves sheet, like in backing a stone, I’ll go for standard sterling for its behavior under the torch. Also if I need to hold wire to solder it in place, standard sterling is better because it doesn’t break when hot. Besides the tarnish-resistance, my favorite characteristics of AS are:
- it fuses well
- can be worked longer before becoming work-hardened
- can be hardened in the kiln
- solders much like gold, ie. directed heat to the joint instead of heating the entire piece
- the color is whiter than standard sterling (a personal preference)
- does NOT fire scale - wow!
That’s more than you wanted to know, but guess I’m running off at the mouth since it’s too cold to get out.
Judy in Kansas, where, Yup - it IS cold.
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The fact that silver tarnishes over time is a major drawback for many collectors of religious ceremonial objects. Many do not want any more pieces in silver because of the required cleaning…:-)…! I was wondering if there is anyone who is doing this kind of (large) work in argentium. I’m guessing that the slumping phenomenon would be a problem (?)…
Janet in Jerusalem
Thanks for the great summary, Judy! I’m printing it out for future reference. A lot of that info is stuff I kind of knew but had forgotten about.