sterling silver jewelry care

Juliette N.

Member
Joined
May 6, 2023
Messages
13
In view of all the opinions the argentium seems to me favorable, it's sure now I'll start with the argentium.
 

Juliette N.

Member
Joined
May 6, 2023
Messages
13
Hello, I come back because I learned a little about argentium. Indeed, I asked my caster but this one does not advise me because there was a problem with the germanium according to him which made the metal brittle, so the people of the trade were not more interested in it in Belgium. His experience dates from 10 years ago, do you think there have been adjustments since then? Thank you
 

Goldjockey

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
May 17, 2018
Messages
274
Hello, I come back because I learned a little about argentium. Indeed, I asked my caster but this one does not advise me because there was a problem with the germanium according to him which made the metal brittle, so the people of the trade were not more interested in it in Belgium. His experience dates from 10 years ago, do you think there have been adjustments since then? Thank you
My late brother James (Jim) used to cast with Argentium from Rio Grande. As you probably know castings are inherently more brittle than pieces fabricated from milled stock, so some brittleness is to be expected no matter what you are having cast. That being said, Jim's experience with Argentium was very positive. He made a lot of jewelry with it, and never complained about brittleness. Rio has very good technical staff, their own refinery and metallurgical capabilities (Academy Refining), and 30 years of experience with the Argentium alloy. You may want to try the argentium casting grain specifically formulated by Rio rather than having a caster attempt to duplicate the alloy in the melt. My own experience with casting shops is that while they are usually quite competent at casting, they typically aren't experts in metallurgy.

 
Last edited:

rweigel

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2017
Messages
203
Location
France (north of Alsace, close to Germany)
In my experience it’s not the Germanium that makes the cast brittle. I had such problems when I used too small a torch to melt the alloy, thus adjusting the flame with too much oxygen to make it hotter. Nowadays I use a big torch with more BTU (=calories, for us Europeans) but less oxygen in the flame. Smooth, ductile and non-porous castings are the result. I use delft sand forms, steel kokilles and broom casting in bundles of toothpicks for casting.

Cheers

Ralf
 

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