Precious Metal Clay (PMC) Pendant
by Andrea Scholes
Project Presented by Red Castle, Inc.

PMC is Precious Metal Clay - a really cool product which is actually silver particles mixed in with an organic binder and is in a clay form. You work with it like you would work with clay, altho there is about 30% shrinkage. You fire it in a kiln, but after it's fired, the resulting piece is actually .999 pure fine silver.

Materials and Tools Needed

#49020 Tactile Impressions II (see below)

• Small piece of PVC pipe, or something to use as a roller - a jar with no label would work fine!
• Cooking spray
• Red Castle Rubber Stamps #49020 (pods in upper left was used for this project) or choose your favorite stamp.
• Razor blade or tissue blade
• 2 pieces of cardboard approx 1/8" thick x 1" wide x 5" long.
• Package of PMC
• Kiln to fire the PMC in (see note below)
• Dremel with a wire brush attachment, or a hand held wire brush
• Safety glasses
• Pliers
• A flat worksurface to work on - a vinyl place mat is perfect
• a fine metal file

Note

Directions

1. Spray your hands and work surface lightly with cooking spray so the PMC won't stick to it.
2. Unwrap your PMC and cut it into three pieces. Keep one piece to work with, and wrap the other pieces back up so they don't dry out.
3. Spray your pvc pipe or bottle lightly with cooking spray.
4. Place the 2 strips of cardboard on your work surface, about as far apart as the size of your rubber stamp... just a tad larger. These strips will be used for the thickness guide of the PMC.
5. Place the PMC in the center of the two cardboard strips and roll it out using the pvc or bottle. The cardboard will stop you from rolling it out too thin. The pvc or bottle should be riding on the cardboard.
6. Once it's rolled out, take away the cardboard, and lightly spray your rubber stamp with cooking spray.
7. Gently press the stamp into the PMC and lift it off, leaving the impression of the stamp in the PMC. If you need to trim the PMC, you can do so with the razor. Make sure there are no jagged edges.
8. If you want to make a pendant, you need to put a hole into the PMC at this point. Make it about 1/8" big, because it will shrink when it's fired.
9. Wrap the scraps up with the rest of the PMC.
10. Let the PMC air dry overnight -
11. Once the PMC is dry, it needs to be fired. Set the kiln to go up to 1650 degrees and hold it for 2 hours there. Let it cool naturally.
12. After the PMC is fired, there is a white residue all over it. This is the remains of the organic binder. This needs to be cleaned off - I use my dremel with a wire brush attachment, but you can also use a hand held wire brush. Brush vigorously until all the residue is gone.
13. If you use a Dremel, please use safety glasses, and make sure you have something to hold the PMC firmly in place - I use some heavy duty pliers. The PMC gets hot when using the wire brush attachment.
14. If there are any sharp edges, file them down with a fine metal file.

All brand names and product names are trademarks, registered trademarks or trade names of their respective holders.

(c) Copyright 2001 by Andrea Scholes and Red Castle, Inc. Red Castle, Inc. - P.O. Box 39-8001 - Edina, MN 55439-8001 All Rights Reserved.