Shrinkage

When creating a piece from Precious Metal Clay you need to keep in mind the shrinkage which will occur when firing your creation. 

Shrinkage occurs because the organic material in the clay burns off during the firing process to leave the pure silver. I use PMC 3 which shrinks around 10-12% during the firing process.

Don't get me wrong shrinkage is not a bad thing ;)

When a piece with an etched design shrinks the detail becomes finer. So depending on the effect you are looking forward the shrinking can be used to your advantage to create the kind of super fine detail you would otherwise not be able create with a non-shrinking clay. By the way all versions of PMC shrink when fired. The original version in excess of 20%!

This picture shows the cutter I used to cut each shape. As you can see the orignal size is clearly larger than the fired piece. These bits are fresh out of the oven today. 

xoK