Tutorial on Reticulation Silver

[@WalkNancy]

Matthieu Cheminee taught a Reticulation class at Metalwerx. He does a lot of reticulation, and he found the best reticulation results with 82% fine silver & 18% copper. He did it 10x, then showed us how to make a mold out of delft clay to cast .925 pieces. It's all a lot of work whether you make your own alloy or buy it from Rio, but the results are so fun! Thanks again for the great video!

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

Thank you for watching, it would be neat to try out 82 18 but one would have to make that oneself, I don't know of any suppliers that have that type of silver available maybe somewhere one could special order it.

[@GoldenRamMtlmstr]

I have found that once I like the pattern, I pull the torch away immediately to freeze the pattern. And I do what you do, I swirl the torch in circles as I'm making the patterns. And yes, I normally use the back that I couldn't see while I was making it. The back is usually more interesting for some reason

[@thedazzlingape2006]

the reason why it is not showing dark oxide layers is because drawing the copper to the surface and etching it away leaves you with pure silver, which does not oxidize. so its just white metal. thats called depletion.

[@hollymc6537]

Thank you for explaining how to know when the piece is getting there/is there and that you then do a few more cycles. It helps to know what to look for!

[@forensicwx]

That’s a HUGE coffee cup! 😂 Great video, I love everything about texture and reticulation.

[@AngiesByKim]

Beautiful!

[@WalkNancy]

Thanks so much! All the varied results are fun!

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

Thank you Nancy

[@tychovonrosenvinge1133]

at 9:20 of this 16:23 tutorial, Pat talks about wanting to melt the fine silver. This is wrong. The inner part of the metal is sterling while the outside is a very thin layer of fine silver. The melting point of fine silver is somewhat higher than that of sterling, so you are melting the sterling without quite melting the surface layer of fine silver. The outer layer, unless you melt it too, contains the liquid sterling. Tycho

[@reneeziegler3823]

Very nice! When you anneal, are you concentrating on a single side to bring up the fine silver? I noticed the reverse side, which you liked better, appeared to have more silver at the surface than the top side.

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

I try to alternate each annealing to be on the reverse side. The reverse side was most likely protected a bit from from oxidation during the reticulation step, and just cleaned up nicer. I am sure with a bit of polishing the other side would be as bright and silvery. I liked the bottom side because of the nooks and crannies that developed. I believe that this occurred because of the surface texture of the fire brick I used.

[@laurenhatfield3090]

is this usable the same way sterling is for pendants and stuff? Trying to buy sheet silver from RIO but they are out of stock, however they have reticulation silver. Just wondering how it would work and if it is different.

[@aisoalboaiso]

Hi, what was the thickness of the sheet ?

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

I believe it is 18 gauge

[@aisoalboaiso]

​@@patcahillmetalworks322Thank you! now I think you said it but my brain used to mm ignored it😂

[@lindanash9042]

Hi, so reticulation silver can or cannot be called sterling silver once reticulated?

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

Well no it should not be called sterling silver. Some do because it is a name people are familiar with but it is not 92.5% silver.

[@reneeziegler3823]

Reticulation silver, some times called coin silver, is an 80/20 alloy (80% fine silver and 20% copper), as opposed to sterling silver, which is 92.5% silver. You can reticulate sterling silver, too, but it's not as dramatic as coin silver.

[@patcahillmetalworks322]

@@reneeziegler3823 I believe that coin silver it 90% silver 10 % copper correct me if I am wrong.

[@reneeziegler3823]

​@@patcahillmetalworks322 Yes, you are correct that the recognized coin silver standard is 90% silver and 10% copper; however, the term "coin silver" is derived from the practice of actually melting down old silver coins, which can vary in fineness from 75% silver to 90% silver. Rio Grande sells a reticulation silver sheet that is 80/20 silver to copper.

[@wbaldwinflippingmad]

If reticulated removes copper from sterling. Then it is logical to beleave that the resulting product is no longer "sterling" but an alloy with higher silver content. Until a the metal can be accurately assayed then it still must be considered sterling because all of the copper has not been removed.

[@janebaribeau4664]

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