Long before I got into silversmithing, I found a unique set of wedding bands that looked like metal that could have been cut from the side of a zebra. They were completely out of my price range, so I forgot about them.
After taking silversmithing I remembered them and I found the process/metal has a name: Mokume Gane. If you can make sandwiches, and you are really loaded with money, you too, can make Mokume Gane.
Basically you take small rectangles (or large ones if you are loaded) and you sandwich alternating metals together so they can be fired/fused into one chunk aka a "billet". Then you go to town on the billet; you drill and saw and mess it up. Then you roll it all through a mill and press it flat. The alternating sections of metal produce patterns and striations that run through the entire thickness of the metal. (If you want the long, not so simply put version along with some pretty fantastic photos of the process, Click Here)
This week I cheated and bought myself a pre-fab piece of Mokume Gane. (Because I am so curious/fond of the process you can bet I'll one day make a billet of my own.) This piece is a combination of sterling silver and copper. It cost me nearly $40 for this tiny chunk of 20 gauge. Considering that I also checked out a chunk of the platinum/sterling combo same size/gauge and it was $800, my cheapo copper/silver combo was a steal!
This ring is for me. If Cody likes it enough, I'll make him a matching ring. It's tumbling to a shine right now. Once smooth I'll rub it with some more patina and try to get the contrast up to black and silver. See, the copper will react with ammonia but the silver won't...so it's like a controlled patina/tarnish. (I already rubbed it a bit with the patina, but since it was going into the tumbler I stopped. See the difference in the two pics?)
Of course I'll photograph it when it's done. And now you know all there is to know about Mokume Gane. ;)
If you like the process, Check out this guy's genius idea: Mokume Kami. He has applied the same principles to laminated paper. Cool huh?!?! Maybe Kim could try this with different types of clay?
7 comments:
You make my stomach hurt by how talented and creative you are.
Can't wait to see the final product!
Wonder if you can do slip trailing or marbling with metal clay...hmmm?
Fabulous!
K
Yes, Kim, there's a form of slip trailing done with pmc; it's exstracted via syringe. It doesn't look very cool in my opinion though---not enough surface to create cool patterns on jewelry---it ends up looking like spider web no matter what.
Yeah, you could layer metal clay but the firing is where the tricky part would come in. Silver clay is fired at lower temps than Bronze clay---BC has to be fired in carbon. I am pretty sure you can fire Copper clay with SC. The point is, it would be much easier to fire from the solid sheet state and not have to account for any binder.
I bet different clays would act the exact say way---the firing would be really tricky.
That is incredible! lm
that is so cool. dude, i wish i lived closer so that all your creativity would rub off just a little on me.
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