Friday 30 November 2007

PMC - Precious metal clay

PMC is the name given to a product originally patented, marketed and named by Matsubishi Industries, consisting of fine pure silver powder obtained by reclamation of silver from the photographic industry. The powder is mixed with an organic binder and water, and sold as a kind of grey putty.


It can be shaped by most of the same processes as any other plastic medium. After drying, it is then made permanent by 'sintering'; in practice, this means baking it at a dull red heat for some time (the time depends on the grade of PMC and can be as short as a few minutes or as long as an hour or so). The leaf illustrated here was made by Sarah Cohen, (I think) a post-doctoral bio-chem lab worker; seen here modelling it as a pendant. This low-tech method of sintering produces fine silver which is light and strong enough for jewellery, but cannot compete with the strength of fabricated silver.

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