Silver colored metal that can be darkened?

R

running bird

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Sep 29, 2015
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Not sure if shop talk or the tinkering and embellishment forum were a better spot for this, but I spend more of my time over here than over there.

One of my coworkers asked me to make a pendant for him. I’ve made pendants before and have been experimenting with texturing and punching designs. He wants it made out of a silver colored metal and wants the patterns/symbols punched/carved into the metal to be blackened.

Finding nickel bar stock in the ~1/8” thickness range seems pretty difficult. Even cupronickel or nickel silver I only see in sheet or thin round bar. On top of that I don’t know if there anyway to darken nickel and it’s alloys. Is there some kind of black coating or lacquer I could apply in the recesses of the punched designs? What would be safe to be in contact with the skin all day?

For some background if anyone is interested. My co worker is from Tonga, a small island nation near Samoa and New Zealand. He grew up spear hunting fish and pigs, hence the spear shape pendant. He currently has a generic spear pendant necklace that looks like something you’d find in a gift shop at the beach. We work at an airport and interact with thousands of people a day and he quickly realized hundreds of people have the same necklace. So he asked me to make something more unique.

When he moved to the US he got his arm sleeve tribal tattoo, every single symbol and pattern on it has its on meaning to his life and things he’s experienced growing up. So the symbols on the pendant are some of the ones that he likes the most.

I’ll attach some pictures of what he has in mind:

https://imgur.com/a/qtuWXLD
 
You can get nickel silver bar stock from Jantz in 1/8" (and other thicknesses as well). I have never tried forcing a patina on nickel silver, but it is probably worth exploring that.

Alternatively, could you try making it in 1080 or something similar and etching the whole thing, then sanding the high spots clean? Perhaps that would allow for silver on the high spots and dark low spots.
 
I had not known if Ni-black, interesting! It says it needs to be sealed with lacquer, have you tried it without?
 
There's always enamel, I use a baked on high temp flat black enamel to blacken the cuts on engraved pieces.
IMG_20230830_112813_354.jpg
 
fishface5 said:
I had not known if Ni-black, interesting! It says it needs to be sealed with lacquer, have you tried it without?
Click to expand...
I use it to darken my mark, it works well.
In a cut or hollow it should last quite a while with no sealer.
 
I've tried brass black on nickle silver. It does turn black but it wears off very quickly.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone

As far as using silver. I’ve used sterling silver sheet before and I like silver a lot. I’ve been struggling to find somewhere that I can get sterling silver or silver bar stock from. I usually use Rio Grande for buying non-ferrous metals, but when I tried to price a the smallest length of sheet available in the thickness I need the price was really high. I’d prefer to use sterling silver so it won’t tarnish too quick, but if my only option for the size I need is to to just buy a 1oz silver bar from a metal investing site then I could always do that.

Does anyone know another site I can find thicker silver stock from? I’m not 100% sure on the dimensions yet but I’d assume something in the range of 1 to 1.25” wide by 3” long and 1/8” thick would give me plenty to work with.

Thanks again
 
How big a piece do you need?

I have silver sheet and nickel silver sheet on hand.
JAX BLACK is a good blackener.
 
I have 1mm sterling silver sheet and cupronickel sheet left over from other projects. I’m trying to find something thicker than that though, in the 1/8” range (~3mm). As for length and width I think 1-1.25” width and 2-3” length would be plenty. I’m not 100% sure on the exact size yet, I’m still working it all out.

Thanks
 
Thank you very much Stacy

I just found that Jantz has 1/8” nickel silver sheet in stock and for a pretty reasonable price. Never came up in my Google searches but I found it by going through their site manually. I’d prefer to use actual silver but if I can’t find any I think that’s a good alternative. And if I end up finding some I’ll at least have something to practice on. I’ll try out some of the darkening options you all mentioned and see what works best for me

I think I’ll try the enamel that WValtakis WValtakis mentioned and the Jax black that Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

SBuzek SBuzek would the Ni-black 40 work on other metals like nickel silver or silver? Or does that only work on stainless?

Thanks again everyone
 
I've read about using aluminium black on nickle silver, but never done it myself.
Go for silver.

Or how about blackwood?
 
I checked the bin of silver. I don't have anything those dimensions thicker than 0.060". Sorry.

I would suggest you carve a simple relief mold in a soft firebrick or magnesia block and melt some silver to pour in the depression. Any scrap silverware or silver coins will work.
That will give you a blank the rough shape you want and as thick as you want.
Of course, if you have a friend who casts jewelry or art work you just carve a wax model and they will cast that in silver.

TIPS -
Carve the depression about 1/4" deeper than the casting. This will give it walls to shape against. If the depression is only as deep as the desired casting surface tension will pull the metal away from the sides toward the center.

Pour the casting thicker and a bit larger than you want. This allows shaping and removing the rough outer surface.

To figure out how much silver you need, carve a rough model out of wax or pine wood.
For wax the silver will be about 12 times the wax weight. For pine it is about 16 times the weight. Add 20 grams extra to make sure there is sufficient metal.

I will be glad to send you a couple blocks of carving wax if you want to go this route.
 
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No worries Stacy, thanks again for the offer and taking the time to check.

Casting seems like a good idea, I’ll weight the left over sheet I have and see if it would be enough to melt it down and cast. If not I do have tube of 10 1oz silver rounds in the safe. Tossing one or two or a cutting a piece off of one wouldn’t bother me too much if I needed.

If I chose to do that though I have a few questions. The 1mm silver sheet I have is sterling silver, while the rounds in my safe are .999 silver. If I were to cast them together should I add in a very small amount of copper to keep it consistent with sterling silver? or is that not really so important? I have lots and lots of copper (5’x5’ of roofing copper sheet, copper bar stock, copper lanyard tubes/pins) so that’s easy enough for me to do.

I have seen little cast iron ingot casts at antique stores around me. Could probably go pick one up for a couple dollars. I assume they’re meant for lead but would they work fine with silver? And would it be ok to use one of those lead casting ladle thingies to melt the silver in? Or would the cast iron being heated in my forge with the silver in it not be a good idea?
 
1) Yes, an ingot mold would work fine. Warm it up with a torch a bit and pour the molten metal in.
2) Since you want to darken the cut areas on the pendant you will need some copper in the casting. My suggestion would be to add pre-1964 silver coins to your sterling sheet. That would give it a slightly lower than sterling silver content that will darken quite well. US coin silver is .900 fine and sterling is .925fine. A 50/50 mix of the two would give you .913 fine silver. The difference is insignificant but should react to the darkening acid a tad better. Old silver coins sell for around $22 per dollar face value right now. You may want to keep your sterling sheet for other projects and just melt down old coins.


You can make an ingot mold with the triangular shape of your arrowhead out of some firebrick. Carve the relief 1/4" deep in one piece and place it against another firebrick. Wire or clamp them together. Pour the molten metal in and let it cool. You will have a triangular ingot a bit less than 1/4" thick. After cleanup of the surface it should be 1/8" plus.
When carving the triangle, place the top of it about 1/2" down from the edge of the brick and then chamfer that 1/2" on both bricks to make a funnel and reservoir for the metal to go in and produce a sprue.

If you can't get silver coins where you are at scrap value let me know. I have about 20-30 pounds for casting and such.
 
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