PMC printing

Jewelry Discussion
1

Has any one had any experience screen printing diluted Precious Metal
Clay onto transfer (decal) paper and subsequently transferring and
firing the image onto sterling?

Could open a whole new world of uses.

Jon

2

Jon, How much detail are you after? Gwen Gibson developed a method
for making texturing plates out of polymer clay, which Celie Fago
then adapted for use with PMC. The example I saw had raised Chinese
characters that were not clean-edged, but still recognizable.

Basically, you take a black-and-white pattern, copy it on a
toner-based photocopier, and rub the copy onto a sheet of polymer
clay. The clay sticks to the toner, so when you peel the paper off,
you have both the paper with a positive design in clay, and the
sheet of clay with a negative design. Fire both and you have two
texturing plates to use with PMC.

Here’s a picture of the technique I mentioned.

attachment removed

Janet

3

I am personally ignorant about PMC, except for what I’ve learned
from Orchid, but I do know a bit about printing. Your query set off
LOTS of interesting ideas for me.

The MOST interesting was: How about serigraphy (screen printing)?
Perhaps one could “applique” thinned PMC on silver forms.

Just my $0.02. I won’t demand a royalty if an Orchidian comes up with
a good way to do that. Just share with the group.

David Barzilay
Lord of the Rings
607 S Hill St Ste 850
Los Angeles, CA 90014-1718
213-488-9157

4

I have thought about the same. Although I thougt about printing
direct on sliver sheets… I have printed on cakes, marzipan, wood,
chockolate - so why not silver…? …I have to try…one day…i
was so fed up with advertising. Yes it could open a market. I have
been printing t-shirs and labels for years and have full equipment
for screen-printing. Try printing on the sort of paper that you use
under your pizza in the oven. Its easy to release, and you can see
through…

Lise

http://www.justliss.com
http://www.voringfossen.com

5

There’s an interesting PMC project in Art Jewelry magazine that is
called tear-away and seems to give the results you want with
printing but in a much easier method. “Create a metal clay pod
pendant” is the article by Celie Fago pp. 38-47.

Donna in VA

6

I have never used PMC or polymer clay, but from my life in graphic
design I know that you can use a Design (brand) Art Marker, the
“Colorless blender,” to release the laser toner onto another surface.
The single-tip, metal-barrel markers work better than the plastic
ones with a large and a short tip. So you might try that with the PMC
or polymer clay. Watch out for fumes, though.

Courtney Graham Hipp
cgHipp Jewelry Designs

7 
 I know that you can use a Design (brand) Art Marker, the
"Colorless blender," to release the laser toner onto another
surface.

Could you please elaborate on this? I iron laser toner onto metal
for etching. Is this a way to do the same without heat? Thanks very
much!

–Noel

8

Here’s what I sent someone else on the list who asked for more info:

It’s something I used to do myself, and it was useful when I needed
to make a comp on some kind of paper (like cardboard) that wouldn’t
fit through the printer. Also very helpful for making birthday cards
and such. We’d just print a mirror image of the design using the
laser printer. Then you turn it upside down on top of the paper you
want to use and either tape it down or hold it very still while
carefully soaking the back of the original paper with the marker,
applying gentle pressure so they toner will stick to the paper below.
You don’t want to rub too vigorously or you’ll blur the image. You
can carefully peek at the paper below to see how it’s working.

I’ve mostly used this for type, but I imagine it could be used for
high-contrast images. Or you could use a large screen size (maybe
screen print or larger) to get big “dots” to transfer. It just seems
to me that there’s no reason the toner wouldn’t also transfer onto
PMC. I’m curious to try it myself, now.

Here’s a link to a picture of the marker. The picture is of a black
marker, but the number at the top of the page refers to the colorless
blender. I believe they can also be found with a fine tip, but that
maybe a trick of memory.

http://tinyurl.com/6cpk9

Good luck! I hope the marker formula hasn’t been radically changed
because of cancer-causing chemicals, rendering this information
useless.

Courtney

Courtney Graham Hipp
cgHipp Jewelry Designs

9

Thanks for the explanation, Janet,

 ....and rub the copy onto a sheet of polymer clay..."

Isn’t there a particular brand/type of polymer clay that works best?
If so, could you tell me what it is?

Dian DV

10 
     ....and rub the copy onto a sheet of polymer clay..."

    Isn't there a particular brand/type of polymer clay that works
best? If so, could you tell me what it is?

Dian,

From Celie Fago’s article: “The variables in this technique are
heat, friction, time, copy machine type, toner, and, especially,
the paper type. If too little heat or friction is used, nothing
happens; too much heat, and the photocopy image transfers to the
clay. Older photocopy machines that use carbon-based toner are
best. I only get consistent results with Sculpey # polymer clay.
Hammerville 24 ob. Premium Laser Paper works consistenly better
than basic copy paper. I’ve also had promising results with heavier
paper (35-64 ob. card stock).”

This is a pretty interesting crafts magazine. Only one issue has
come out so far; the second will be in October.

Janet