Thursday, June 17, 2010

Aura 22



ACS Gold and Aura 22 are gold pastes that are used to add a touch of gold to the silver. (This saves "lots" of money. Gold ain't cheap.)

We were required to make two rings for Rio Grande's Certification class. Both rings were made without the use of a ring sizer or a ring mandrel. (I just could not imagine it. But it was possible and the method was really cool. There I go again showing my age. ) They fit perfectly!
I am use to forming my rings over a ring mandrel, so I fussed somewhat about making it without one. (Once again I had to remind myself that things are easily corrected after the piece is dry and in this case fired. You would think I could remember that after all this time.)

One of the rings was made as a round band and was decorated with PMC sheet clay which was painted with Aura 22.

We torch fired this ring (something else which I have never done. I always thought rings required the use of a kiln.) After firing, we painted two coats of Aura 22 on it and torched it again until the piece turned orange. (If over-fired, the gold can be absorbed by the silver.) I had to re-fire mine three times as the gold kept popping off. (But I got a little gold on the edge and do you think it will pop off. NO...... even though I've tried to scratch it off.)

I've been wearing my ring and have lost two pieces of gold so far. I do expect it to all fall off eventually. (Know this from experience as I made a similar piece for my husband a couple of years ago. This ring has sheet clay rimming the edges and circles of sheet on top.)

In my PMC Connection Level 2 class we used gold clay and made our own paste. Then we torched it for five minutes (that's a long time to hold a torch!) I used my piece as a charm on my charm bracelet and it has not popped off yet (over a year later and after all the bumping around a charm takes.)

I'm not sure what this means. I'll have to try the homemade gold paste on a ring. (But first I have to find some money to pay for the gold clay.) That will take a while! Maybe it's the sheet clay that's the problem.

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