Argentium Silver
August 25, 2006 by Tammy Powley
Filed under Wire
Silver lovers are warming up to Argentium Silver, a low-tarnish version of the white metal that is so popular. Yes, it does cost a little more, but considering the overall cost of precious metals these days, that’s not that surprising.
A few years ago, I spoke with Mike DiRienzo of The Silver Institute about this new form of silver, and at the time, it wasn’t easy to find.
However, now things are different and you can find Argentium available from many metal suppliers including Wigjig.com and Rio Grande, who happens to also have a free technical guide in .pdf format as well as an instruction sheet, also in .pdf.
My own experience with it is that it is not as malleable as good old 925 sterling with the copper content. Plus with an oxy-air smith torch I find using the lower temp solders work out better with the new alloy. I found this site http://www.argentiumsilver.com/ to be very informative.
I still use both kinds depending on the job and what kind of sioldering/finishing I want on the piece.
There’s also an interesting discussion (that began on _Orchid_) of tarnish resistant properties suggesting annealing and quenching several times gives you the optimum result.
http://www.touchmetal.com/blog/argentium-blog.html