Practice gold inlay

[herrnusser]

I am sure I am speaking for a lot of us newbies out there. I (we) would love to practice gold inlays but are nervous using such an expensive medium to expirement. In everyone's expierience what other metal mimics golds malubility and working properties? Thanks

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Start off using copper wire. Then move on to silver if you want a bit more prestige or want to practice damascenes/overlays.

 

[Don Cowles]

Ray Viramontez sells a silver wire/plate inlay kit at a very reasonable price.

 

[Ray Cover]

Copper is a good alternative. Make sure you use good quality copper wire it will be softer and work much easier. I find it works about like 22K gold

To aneal it I heat it to cherry red and drop it in IPA alcohol 70% or higher. The IPA keeps the tarnish off the copper. It comes out ready to use with no crap on the surface. Just be careful not to stick you face over the jar of alcohol when you drop the copper in. Sometimes the hot metal lights the IPA and well.......... a guy just looks funny without eyebrows.

The fine silver is softer and works much like 24K gold. The only problem is that it is very close in color to your steel practice plate and it tends to be a bit un-impressive without the color contrast.

Ray

 

[Sam]

My advice is to invest a few dollars in yourself and buy some 24k gold. Nothing works like 24k. It's buttery soft and very cooperative. If you're eventually going to do gold inlay, then practice with the real stuff. The actual cost of doing small amounts of wire inlay is very, very small. Maximize your chances for success! / ~Sam

 

[SamW]

I agree with Sam. You can always dig out the gold and reuse it with very little loss. I melt all my trimmings into a lump, pound that into a 1mm flat piece, cut strips with sissors and then pull back into wire form with a draw plate. It does take some time to get that much scrap to be worth the time to reprocess. It is also nice to find out just how well your inlay was set and digging it out will let you know.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Alternatively, you could apply for a place on the Grand Masters Program. My father will be teaching techniques on how to work with gold in a very frugal way whilst not being detrimental to the work. It involves using very thin sheet and wire.

 

[Mike Bissell]

I was told when I started that if I wanted to inlay gold then I should use gold. Like Sam A. and Sam W. have advised. I found that even though gold is expensive the amount you would use to practice with would not be as expensive as one would first believe because of the amount used. I have found that if one can do cooper or silver inlays then they should have no trouble doing a gold inlay because of the cooper and silver being slightly harder.
I have not tried this but I have wondered If inlaying aluminum wire for practice would more closely mimic the properties of gold for those looking for cheaper way to practice. I realize that there probably isn't a line of people looking for aluminum wire inlays so I'm talking about using it just as a learning tool.

Does anyone else think this would work?

Mike