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Hi Marty! I have just found your blog and have been reading up some of the points you have made about Argentium. I live in the UK and we have only just got it here (since July). I am very new at this jewellery lark and so don’t have much experience working with sterling silver – but I have done a fair bit with fine silver and pmc. I thought that Argentium would be fantastic if I could incorporate it into my designs where the fine silver would just be too weak and still be able to maintain the tarnish free jewellery that I am aiming to be able to make and sell. I have not had a great deal of success with my experiments so far and have just written up a piece on my blog about my most recent set of disasters! http://solunarsilverstudio.wordpress.com. I am particularly interested in how you manage to anneal your Argentium successfully. I have tried all sorts of ways but just don’t seem to be able to get the wire soft enough to even wind it round a mandrel!! I am really jealous that you get it as soft as lead!! I have not really found a lay mans description of how to anneal wire with temperatures, times and when to quench…and really struggle to get my head round all the chemistry, physics and metallurgy that comes up whenever I try to search for information!! I would love to hear any comments you might have which might help me on my way….so far I am less than impressed with it!! …but I am willing to change my mind!! Thanks for taking the time to read this!!
Regards,
Barbara