Hi everybody. I'm fairly new to this forum, and enjoying it greatly. I'm one of those off-and-on jewelry-making hobbyists... getting more "on" recently and stepping things up. I'm pretty much self-taught (no classes), and probably lacking in a lot of the basics. I see a lot of beautiful finishes on silver out there, and wondering about a few of them. I will certainly be experimenting, but would love to get your opinions/input:

In years past, I have cast some silver and gold jewelry successfully, techniques and equipment that are FAR from "by-the-book". Until this week, I had never used a vacuum de-bubbler. My burnout oven was a metal coffee can on top of a hotplate that surely never reached so much as 700 deg F (flask never glowed orange). And my centrifugal caster appears to be home-made (I bought it used), and only spins for about 30 seconds. With all this... I have cast some pretty nice stuff. But I'm trying to do better. So...

I am new to artmetal and I hope to make new friends and learn more about working with metal.

I have worked as a bench jeweler in the past and just recently set up a custom jewelry design/repair shop in a caboose in the Sandhills of Nebraska.

Three pieces of rare red beachglass set in Argentium Sterling Silver

Hi Everybody,

My first post here, a question:

I'd like to make an alloy of 80% Copper, 10% Silver and 10% Zinc, to be poured into lost-wax molds (plaster/sand) on a small scale (eg. 10oz total). Copper and silver have reasonably close melting points (Cu 1981F and Ag 1762F), but Zn has a boiling point of 1664F, meaning it could boil off before the other two melted.