Think about Shrinkage when Designing Sterling Silver Metal Clay Hollow Ring!

Hi everyone, I have continued to work with the new sterling silver metal clay trying to solve the problems I had from my last posting. Success!

I recreated the ring in my last post, but this time I made sure that the inside ring shank was not attached to the outside ring band. I also made both inside and outside ring bands the same thickness, 6 cards thick.

In my first attempt, I made the inside ring shank thinner, thinking that the sterling silver clay is stronger and it didn't need to be so thick. Which is true, but it also shrinks quite a bit!  So, while firing, the outside larger band pulled the thinner band apart creating a small tear in the inside ring shank.

Here is the new ring showing the two bands separate and the same thickness. I made them thicker so that I could carve into the clay and set stones later.











Another problem I had with the first ring was the carbon indenting the metal during firing. This time I encased the ring with fiber blanket during the second firing.


First I fired the clay on the shelf (per the instructions) and then wrapped the ring inside fiber blanket with a small amount of fiber blanket inside the ring shank.

 I made sure the carbon below the fiber blanket was 1/2" thick (per the instructions).

I then covered over the fiber blanket 1/2" with activated coconut carbon. The lid was placed tightly on the stainless steel container and fired at 1500 F for one hour. I fired it for an hour because the ring is so thick in mass.

The ring came out fine fully sintered with no dents from the carbon!