I live in the UK, and all my stuff came from a major jewellery supplier called Cookson"s Gold. It’s a German jewellery company. They are in the Jewellery quarter in Birmingham and they supply everyone, so I am pretty sure they would not have sent me the wrong stuff or a bad batch.
Buying in the USA means you get hit with import duty and taxes and big postal costs, so it means I have to buy from UK suppliers. I am a student after all.
It was a disappointing experience and I do tend to make stuff that can be quite fiddly…so for my first use I probably should have tried a simple design and played more with the stuff. However, saying that if I had made it in regular sterling silver, it would more than likely have turned out right.
So I am a bit put off, and the more I read the more confused I have become. I tried soldering on a regular kiln brick and on compressed carbon, both didn’t work equally…neither was particularily good at fusing and I did melt a few bezels trying to get them to join with a base.
I watched the videos on the Rio Grande site quite a few times…so I worked out the heat colours, cooling and melting (over heating) points. Why should my bangle come out of the pickle as hard as anything? Most stuff gets annealed and is easy to work after annealing and pickling? So that was a worry. I just could not get the stuff to work for me, and while I am no expert, I am probably in the intermediate stage. More than a beginner. Someone I know raised a bowl in argentium without any problems, and perhaps I should try that…usually it’s done in Britannia silver over here. Britannia silver is also 935. I don’t know if you have that in the States. Thanks for your response