Finally made fine silver charms from button moulds

I few posts back I showed pictures of some buttons and the moulds I had taken from them to be able to make fine silver charms from using precious metal clay (PMC).

Last night I finally got around to making the charms. And this morning I fired them using my gas hob - a smelly job as the binder in the PMC burnt off but at least its finally done.

Here's a photo of the moulds with the unfired clay charms:



Moulds with unfired charms

 I then used a pair of tiny drill bits to drill a hole in each charm, the smaller bit first and then a slightly larger bit to widen the hole. Later I will put jump rings through these holes so that the charms can be hung on bracelets or necklaces.

After firing, PMC has been changed to fine silver but it is covered with a white crust that needs to be removed to be able to see the silver, in the photo below, the fish charm in the top right corner has been cleaned with a wire brush and water to remove the white crust. The other 3 charms have not yet been cleaned.

Fired charms

Tonight I will clean the last 3 charms of the crust and then tumble them with steel shapes to polish them further. I'll post a photo of the polished charms next time.

Until next time
Anne