Where can I find granules for granulation?
Jkhtex
granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
rev'd richgoth of that ilk
the right size for your granules
2)get some silver wire
3) chop into smal lengths (you may need to experiment)
4)place a length of wire over a dimple and heat with torch
result- granules...
this only works for small ones though...under about 3-4mm
--
Rev'd Richgoth of that Ilk
http://members.sia.net.au/dispater
gunsmithing, cannon-founding, medieval technology, lathe history
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Jkhtex <jkh...@aol.com> wrote in article
<qi9fvs4trbh7u4c63...@4ax.com>...
Carl or Rebecca Downey
>
> Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
> granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
> ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
Howdy,
You could try; http://www.goldgranules.com/
I'm not affiliated nor even a metalsmith. Perhpas others will have
suggestions for you.
Carl
1 Lucky Texan
NE333RO
>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
If you don't need a whole bunch of them why not just make them?
Paul Ewing
>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
Take some sterling wire or use clean scrap sheetand cut into small
pieces. Heat it up under a torch. The pieces will ball up into nice
spheres. If the spheres are too large they will flatten on the
bottom, but this may not be a problem depending on your design.
Good luck,
Paul Ewing
Shining Moon Creations
http://www.shiningmoon.com
Fishbre396
(Jkhtex) writes:
>Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
Why don't you just melt some small pieces of sterling. Small. spherical
granules are also known as "shot". Just point your torch at the metal pieces
and watch them ball up!
Marion Margoshes
If you want them all the same size, you mst go thru a sifting process.
--
pisces
Gary Wooding
metal of the required purity to create a quantity of filings - choose a
file that gives filings of the required size.
Take the filings, spread them out on a charcoal block so that they remain
seperate, and heat them with a flame until they melt and form small spheres.
Pickle, wash, and dry them and you have the granules you wanted. It really
is that easy.
--
Gary Wooding
-
"Jkhtex" <jkh...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:qi9fvs4trbh7u4c63...@4ax.com...
Amy O'Connell
>
> Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
> granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
> ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
I would recommend using fine silver over sterling. You'll have a much
better time.
Amy O'Connell
Amy O'Connell Jewelry
http://LapidaryArt.com
Don Norris
Even though it is a Monthly tip on silver soldering, this information is true
for soldering gold on to silver. "Why Solder Will Not Flow" monthly tip can be
found at:
http://www.frii.com/~dnorris/mar99tip.html
Don
LESLIE KINDER-ANDERSON
I've not done any granulation, although I've been a
gold/silver/platinumsmith for 25 years.
I did read that the traditional way to make granules is to mix ground up
charcoal with fine silver or fine gold filings or small pieces, place them
in a crucible and fire them in a kiln to slightly above the melting
temperature of the metal. This takes away the tendency for the granules to
become flat on the bottom, since the molten metal is suspended in the
charcoal.
After firing you rinse away the charcoal. Then you have to use screens to
sort the different sizes of granules.
Leslie
Fishbre396
<dno...@frii.com> writes:
>"Why Solder Will Not Flow" monthly tip
The only reason Solder WILL not FLOW is that the metal around it isn't hot
enough.
Sheesh, this is not a GREAT tip!
Peter W. Rowe
Oh, I don't know, fishbre. Don gives a number of reasons why solder won't flow
properly. Lack of heat is only one reason. His others, such as not enough/no
flux, or dirt, also are quite valid. If you've got dirty metal, and especially
if your flame is not reducing enough, no amount of heat will flow the solder
properly unless you've got enough flux, for example. Soldering requires that
several conditions be met. The metal must, as you note, be hot enough for the
solder to melt and flow onto it. but the metal must also be chemically clean
enough so that molten metal can flow onto and bond to solid metal. That
requires the metal to be clean in the first place, and usually, the presence of
flux to prevent the formation of oxides/removal of existing oxides which will
impede the flow of the solder....
And of course, it might be mentioned, considering the subject line of this
thread, that soldering itself doesn't really have so much to do with granulation
in the first place, since granulation consists of bonding the grains WITHOUT the
use of solder. For granulation to happen correctly, you then cannot have flux,
or at least not enough for grains to float and thus not be in contact with the
metal they are to bond to. And you also have to have enough heat. And you also
must have appropriate reducing conditions to ensure that the copper metal that
you've introduced to the bond area remains metallic, and not oxidized, so that
it can form the eutectic alloy at the grain and substrate surfaces which are
responsible for the actual bonding in granulation work. While the metalurgy of
what happens in granulation is closely related to what happens in soldering, the
conditions the metalsmith creates in order for it to happen is somewhat
different. Or, at least, the steps taken to do it differ...
Cheers
Peter
Peter W. Rowe
(Jkhtex) wrote:
>>Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
>>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
>>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
I've been following this thread hoping someone would mention that you can,
indeed, buy grains suitable for granulation. I've seen sold, various sizes of
carefully graded spheres in both fine silver and several grades of gold alloy,
specifically made for this type of use. I recall about a year ago a girl posted
a note here on r.c.j. mentioning that she'd taken a class in granulation, and
she and others in the class had purchased the grains, but I can't seem to find
the references to that post. I know I saw it first when she was selling the
excess grains (she'd bought too much) on ebay. She'd pruchased these grains
from some company who's primary business was powder metal technology, and in
this use the grains are often very small, but she'd had grains in about .032 and
.045 inch sizes, if I recall right (don't quote me). As I recall, the
manufacturer was some company with a name like ABM or some such. I'm certain
that this memory is not correct. But it was some such sort of name, I think.
anyway, I'd bet that a bit of time searching the web, especially checking
through listings on the Thomas Register site, would find you such manufacturers
if you're interested.
The other thing to mention, however, is that the grains are very expensive.
You're paying for the manufacturing, of course, and making one's own is time
consuming. so maybe this is still a good deal for someone. The grains are very
uniform in size. But if I remember correctly, fine silver grains were something
like 150 dollars an ounce. With silver at under five dollars an ounce at the
new york spot price, this obviously is a major difference. And the gold ones too
were for something at least twice the spot price of gold. And, to get this
price, she'd had to buy something like ten ounces, which was why she was selling
the excess. Again, it's been a while, and my memory may be playing tricks on
me, but the general idea here is probably in the ballpark.
You might check the deja archives of this group for "granulation", and see if
you can locate that persons post/email address. Or perhaps the whole thing was
actually on the orchid list, not on r.c.j. in the first place, so perhaps check
their archives.
Hope this helps.
Peter Rowe
Carl or Rebecca Downey
>
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2000 20:34:51 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry jkh...@aol.com
> (Jkhtex) wrote:
>
> >>Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
> >>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
> >>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
>
> I've been following this thread hoping someone would mention that you can,
SIGH...
OK, here it is AGAIN;
http://www.goldgranules.com/
Though you are correct about one thing, VERY expensive and $500 minimum
order! Looks like a good reason to learn to DIY.
Carl
1 Lucky Texan
Marion Margoshes
>
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2000 20:34:51 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry jkh...@aol.com
> (Jkhtex) wrote:
>
> >>Hello All - I was looking for a place to find small, sterling, spherical
> >>granules for some granulation that I am trying to produce. If you have any
> >>ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks - Brian
>
> I've been following this thread hoping someone would mention that you can,
I have asked Felicia Liban (the enamelist as well as other techs) to
tell me where she gets her granules. She works with fine silver
granules, while John Cogswell uses sterling (and makes his own) ---I
took a granulation workshop with John a while ago. When I get a
response from Felicia, I will pass it on.
--
pisces
Ron Arney Sr.
<G> If you need them really, really, really small, try the dregs from water
casting.
Ron
Ellen Nelson
I'm the person Peter mentioned in his previous replies to this topic.
I checked out the website www.goldgranules.com. That site is SPM's. As far
as I know, they are the only jewelry industry source for granulation
spheres.
I bought mine by buying in bulk (10+ ounces of gold plus 30 ounces of
silver) from a semiconductor industry supplier that I worked with and
developed. If there is a lot of interest in them, I could buy more and
supply them to members of the forum. Please email me and let me know if you
are interested.
In the meantime, I have two sizes of fine silver granules left - .024" and
..028". I sold all of the gold granules in all three sizes, and all of the
..032" silver. Everyone has been very happy with them. Email me if you want
more information.
Regards,
Ellen
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PWR...@ix.netcom.com [mailto:PWR...@ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 1:13 AM
> To: Ellen Nelson
> Subject: granulation balls?
>
>
>
> Ellen,
>
> Some time ago you were advertising on Orchid, some excess silver and gold
> granules that you'd purchased for granulation work. At the time,
> you mentioned
> the firm of SPM as a source. Would you happen to have their
> contact info or a
> web address for them or other firms selling such grains? I ask
> because the
> subject has come up on the usenet newsgroup, rec.crafts.jewelry,
> and nobody
> seems to know of that firm. The only source that came up was
> www.goldgranules.com, which may well be the SPM product being
> resold by someone.
> Just curious is you happen to know a source. Or, if you've still got some
> granules to sell, you might wish to mention that fact on the
> newsgroup. Some
> folks were looking...
>
> thanks.
>
> Peter Rowe
> moderator
> rec.crafts.jewelry
>
"NE333RO" <ne3...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:42nhvs085f985ti09...@4ax.com...
roberta weisenburg
If you are planning to do granulation with silver, it is much easier if you
do it with fine silver.
If you want to make them, which is easy, and much less costly, and not too
time-consuming-
purchase some fine sterling wire 30 gauge, from a company in New York City,
called Metalflerrous.
When you receive your wire in the mail... take a sewing needle ( you decide
on size) wrap the wire
around the needle (as you would make jump rings) take a small scissors
(cuticle snips) and cut them.
With tweezers place them on a charcoal block in lines, and come down on them
with your torch with a small
sharp flame, until you see them spin, move on to the next,,,,, this technique
helps you get a uniform size.
I do granulation in 22k gold, and if you need any more advice please ask.
After you do them all pickle and rinse them.
Metalflerrous also sell the bee hive kilns that are used with granulation.
Good luck--Roberta