My Attempt at a Tiki Pendant - Silver Clay

My first attempt at using silver clay:

Unfired:

Being fired:

After firing (still white colour before being brushed and polished to reveal the silver):

Wire brushed and polished:

Ghis, welcome to Tiki Central.

Cool pendant! I've got some of the Bronze clay but haven't come up project for it yet. Looks like you fired it on a gas stovetop?

Wow, that looks awesome.For the actual pendant,is that carved or from a mold? I Love the silver color.

Lorilei, I'm sure Ghis will pop back in but here's an answer about the silver clay.

Silver Clay is a mixture of microfine silver powder and a binder. You form it just like clay then fire it in a kiln or with a torch. The binder burns out and the silver fuses together leaving pure silver in the shape you made. It also comes in gold, bronze and copper. It's a bit expensive though - 5 grams Gold = $270, 50 grams Silver = $80, 100 grams Bronze or Copper = $20 As a point of reference, 50 grams of Silver is worth about $21

It is done freehand, not molded. It is just put together in approximate shape then carved + more bits of silver clay added to get the raised shapes (lips, tongue etc). The silver clay is quite expensive indeed. I am going to try to make some more with normal coloured polymer clay. These will be much cheaper to make. I make jewelry as a hobby and wanted to start making my own pendants so gave polymer a go. The silver clay I bought can be fired on a hob (you can get the stainless steel mesh and mesh cage from some arts and craft websites). The pendant is very heavy which demontrates how much silver it actually contains.

If you follow the link in my profile you can see more of the jewelry I make.

Awesome,thanks for all the info. I'll have to check out your jewelry, this guy here looks great!

I am thinking about doing a series of 25 of them. I may try to do them in cheaper clays in different colors. Do you think people would be interested? Just testing the water to see if it worth getting the clay in. The silver clay is very expensive, others clays are cheaper.

I would think that people would be interested. YumYum and myself had made some small pendant/ornaments in the past that did fairly well. I'd say maybe test them out on the more inexpensive clay and see how they do. I myself may be interested in one!

i'm working on stuff with the bronze clay right now. i'll post a pic soon. it's a lot more inexpensive if you want to try it. it's a little tougher to fire than silver as it can't be fired on an open flame, but if you have access to a kiln it's a good way to get your fingers dirty.

Nice work on your pendant. I have used the silver clay too (even got a kiln, which is sitting unused on my bedroom floor - my mom would say "another flash in the pan."!). The first few things I made came out REALLY heavy. I started using that molding cork to fill out space without having to use up all the clay. I make my own slip from the leftovers and the stuff I sand off the dried pieces - I'm a real penny pincher when it comes to my art supplies! Great - now I want to drop the embroidery and start working with the silver clay again! That's the problem with being multi-arts interested!