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.
Usually I find that customers want shiny, and at as cheap as they can screw me out of. 
Yes, if you educate them!!!
Argentium is extremely worth the small extra cost compared to sterling. I have perfectly white castings, and for your customer, they will have jewelry that tarnishes far less than sterling. Plus, you can harden sterling very easily after it’s constructed so the polish should last longer than Sterling.
I agree with Judy_in_Kansas - I’ve only started working with Argentium Sterling when taking silversmithing classes here in Toronto, Canada in 2011. I was very new to silversmithing and watched the anguish of other students trying to clean firescale off of cuffs. The teacher was only familiar with regular sterling and after MUCH research [which is my nature] I decided to order some Argentium Sterling from RioGrande and give it a try. I loved that when I annealed it, it got whiter rather than blacker, and I NEVER got firescale. At that point I was hooked and sold my existing sterling inventory [which wasn’t much] to other students and the teacher, and totally switched to Argentium Sterling. The largest drawback I’ve had has just been getting information on working with it. Granted, regular sterling has been around for centuries and Argentium Sterling has only been around for about 20 years, so that certainly accounts for the slow growing amount of info available. I didn’t have a lot of training in regular sterling so I didn’t have a lot to ‘unlearn’. Example, you shouldn’t throw a piece of red hot soldered Argentium into a quench bowl. Give it a few seconds to become black hot. I’ve heard that people who work in gold have an easier time working in Argentium Sterling because their working properties are far more similar. I love fusing items and having zero solder to clean up. I love the gorgeous white colour of the Argentium polished surface and my friends [who are becoming clients] are blown away but the ‘quality look’ of the surface. I explain that it’s highly tarnish resistant. I explain to ‘clients’ that it’s a ‘step up’ from regular sterling in that it’s 93.5 fine silver instead of 92.5, and that instead of 7.5% copper, it’s only 5.5% copper and the remaining 1% is germanium [which is actually a more expensive element than gold]. This story seems to be fascinating to ‘clients’ [as it is to me (smile)]. Anyway, my2cents regarding whether people know the difference and care. I think as time goes on, and the story is repeated, more will appreciate the benefits. Ciao, Carol M
I recently bought my first Argentium sheet through Rio after watching Cynthia Eid’s three videos on working with Argentium.
The videos are available through Interweave, and Eid imparts a great deal of information on working with Argentium as she works through three projects. They are also available as DVDs. I highly recommend them.
(No affiliation with Ms. Eid or Interweave — I learn a great deal watching videos and DVDs and value these.)
Tricia
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The argentium is not superior to any of the other deox firescale free silvers out there.
gspyle,
I think it may, perhaps, be more readily available? And since there are argentium solders that are also available, for me it felt more like an easy adjustment from traditional sterling.
(Still learning…)
Tricia
Hi gspyle, Just curious to know how you came to this conclusion.
Did you do comparison testing of Argentium against ‘the other deox firescale free silvers out there’??
I can’t speak for Gypsy but I have used Argentium and stullers Sterlium for years. They are equally tarnish resistantant I like the working qualities of sterlium better
Hi Wadedesigns1-
I’d love to know more about Sterlium compared with Argentium. Most people [including me] probably haven’t had much [if any] opportunity to compare the two. Is Sterlium firescale free like Argentium? That’s one thing I love about Argentium. What about slumping, does Sterlium slump? How about other things? price, does it polish as well as Argentium, can thin delicate pieces be hardened, etc. Really curious about what you think.
There are people who are allergic to Argentium. I was lead to believe that was not the case but it is true and it goes beyond the green tinge and coloring of Sterling and nickel based metals. It’s quite miserable from what customers have told me.
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Sterlium is similar I believe to Argentium in that they are both are silver germanium or silicone type alloys.They are proprietary blends so I don’t know exactly what all is in them but yes sterlium does not fire scale and it does not slump. And I had better results casting sterlium. I buy mostly sheet and wire and I cast the scraps. I also buy silver bullion off the street below spot and mix with an anti tarnish casting alloy that is marketed through Casker. Stullers Continuum has some very nice properties as well it is much harder than any other alloy I have used yet. Almost like 14k yellow gold in its hardness.And almost looks like 14k white in its color I bought some 10 mm by 2.5 mm flat stock that I was making into bracelets. After wearing myself out bending the first one I annealed the rest of it before bending and then re-hardened it in an oven. Continuum is almost twice the price of sterlium because, we think, that it has palladium in the mix.