Powdered Metal Clay

The Lapidary club made special arrangements for a teacher to come and teach classes on how to use powdered metal clay.

We  also are home to the Metal Clay Group. They meeting on Wednesday afternoons. The next meeting will be Wednesday June 17, 2020

What is Metal Clay?

Metal clay is a jewelry making material that can be used by just about anyone to create jewelry and small decorative objects. Metal clay is made from powdered metal mixed with water and a substance called “methyl cellulose”. Methyl cellulose may sound like a nasty chemical, but it’s actually made from the cell walls of green plants. It’s an organic ingredient used in food additives and is non-allergic, non-toxic and perfectly safe to work with.

Metal clay handles similar to traditional modeling clays, and, when dried, it is transformed into a solid object through a firing process. During firing, the methyl cellulose, typically called “binder”, is burned away and the metal particles “sinter” into a solid form. Sintering is the process of making a powdered material (in this case, metal clay) coalesce into a solid mass by heating it to a very high temperature, just below the point of liquefaction.

There are several types of metal clay available: fine silver, silver alloy, gold, gold alloy, copper, bronze and steel. Each type of metal clay has unique firing requirements because each metal has a different melting point.