Making metal jewelry has come a long way in the modern era. The advances in technology have produced a much lager and better quality variety of different types of metals. One of the greatest innovations has come in the sterling silver area. Through these advances it has made planning and designing your own jewelry much easier.
Compared to standard stainless silver the introduction of Argentium heralded a major breakthrough in silver jewelry design and manufacture. The majority of the time creating better designs and durability was directly linked to knowledge of how to improve craftsmanship, but with Argentinium sterling silver it makes silver jewelry making much easier than with the traditional metal. Making jewelry using Argentium has an advantage, especially when you do wire sculpture or with any type of jewelry using sterling silver, and you will be surprised how beautiful you’re created jewelry is with Argentium.
Argentium is a real and modern sterling silver because it contains the minimum of 92.5% pure silver. This is the product of research by Peter Johns at the School of Art & Design, Middlesex University. In 1990, Peter Johns began his research on the effects of germanium (a lustrous and hard silver-white metalloid) additions to alloys. And until now the university owns the patent and they are licensed to produce Argentium worldwide.
There are many advantages Argentium has compared with other traditional sterling silver, to name few this silver are fire scale-free alloy and has a high tarnish resistance. You can keep it gleaming by rinsing and wiping it with smooth cloth occasionally and it doesn’t even need any polishing.
Germanium is the element that helps prevent Argentium from tarnishing. This is a crystalline semi-metallic element and naturally found in small amounts of silver, copper and zinc ores, as well as in other minerals. This is chemically similar to tin since it is lustrous, hard silver-white metalloid, and with the same crystal structure as diamond. It forms an invisible film on the surface of silver alloy, and this film prevents oxygen from reaching tarnish-able metals.
In working with Argentium, you need to be aware of certain differences between Argentium and traditional sterling silver, except if you are merely incorporating Argentium findings or wire into their jewelry. As what I’ve said earlier, Argentium are not similar to other traditional silver, they are stiffer silver. So if you prefer to do wire sculpting, using a dead soft Argentium is highly recommended.
Just always remember that don’t do polishing if at all possible, but if you feel that they need to be polish, just be sure of using uncontaminated cloth by other metal polisher when wiping to maintain the main the exceptional beauty of Argentium sterling silver.
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Glad to see someone embracing Argentium sterling silver. My company has been using it for some of our wedding band styles for a little over a year now. While it’s been slow to catch on with retailers, the metal has a great price point. Argentium sterling silver is a good choice if someone is looking to step up from ordinary sterling silver.
If interested, take a peek – http://www.novelldesignstudio.com/products.php?category=70.