Metal Clay

Metal Clay is a new and unique material suitable for both GCSE and A Level Design & Technology, and Art courses.

Metal Clay is a modern material and already revolutionising what jewellers and designers can create in solid silver without the need for casting equipment. Despite its name, Metal Clay is not ‘clay’ at all, but a paste made from fine ground particles of pure silver, organic binder and water. It works like traditional clay so can be moulded and sculpted in the usual way, or reduced with water into a ‘slip’ consistency for joining pieces together, or filling small cracks.

The ‘magic’ happens when the design is fired. The water evaporates and the organic binder burns away leaving a 99% pure solid silver piece. As such, it can be hallmarked as Fine Silver and (if needs be) can be silver-soldered. Care needs to be taken with any heat process like this, but the materials themselves are non-toxic.

For small projects, firing can be done with a torch and only takes a couple of minutes. Larger pieces should be kiln fired for even heating.

Once fired the silver metal clay appears white (the natural colour for silver) and must be polished. A stainless-steel brush will achieve a fine matt finish which can then be worked into a high lustre using a burnisher or polishing mop. Even easier is to polish by tumbling in a barrel polisher/tumbler with water, a little soap and some stainless steel shot. This technique has the added advantage of work-hardening the silver to strengthen it – important for delicate items such as rings.

This metal clay contains bronze or copper instead of silver. As such, it is a cheaper alternative – ideal for school use where budgets may be tight.

TechSoft are always looking for new and innovative products to help students get even more benefit from our CAD/CAM resources. These metal clays provide an excellent opportunity for creating ‘clever’ projects of high-value using laser-cut or milled 2D moulds. 3D moulds can be created using even our smallest CNC milling machine and softer materials such as modelling wax makes an ideal mould-material. Projects are likely to be small so costs can be controlled and throughput can be manageable for individual or groups of students. By using CAD/CAM for mould making, designs can be thoroughly checked in CAD and any number of moulds can be made using small amounts of cheaper material before committing to the metal clay. Metal clay is an excellent material for free-hand modelling but the use of moulds allows for tighter control and limits the chance for wastage.



The chosen design is created in TechSoft Design V3, SolidWorks or taken from a 3D scanned image. Any TechSoft/Roland CNC mill is then used to produce a mould or pattern. In this case a pattern is being milled from machining wax.



A flexible mould is produced from the pattern by hand-forming moulding compound around it. The compound sets quickly making for uninterrupted progress.



The metal clay is pressed into the mould, allowed to dry, carefully removed, and then thoroughly dried in a warm place before torch or kiln firing. This model has simply been brush-finished and awaits burnishing and polishing.