Reuse, Recycle, Renew!

I've been making things with metal clay for about 10 years now. And I've taken my share of metalsmithing classes too. Yet I'm still not a world class jewelry maker! Imagine that. In all of that making, experimenting, designing and fabricating there are also a lot of failures, scraps, uglies and bores. What to do with it all?

Well, a couple of weeks ago I decided to pack it all up and send it off to Rio Grande for refining. Rio will pay you good money for fine silver, sterling silver, argentium silver and gold "clean" scrap. "Dirty" scrap includes clay infused sanding sticks, baby wipes, stuff vacuumed up from the floor etc. There's a company called Hoover and Strong that will help you with that kind of refining. Don't turn your nose up like that! You can make a bundle from all those little "no see-um's" of precious metal. 

Want the dough? Okay, you'll get a pretty good price for it. But ask for goods instead and you get a credit worth more than the cash refund. For my baggie of junk I got a couple hundred dollars worth of wire, tools, supplies, to say nothing of the joy of not having to count every penny only to wind up having to put something back. Which is my usual modus operandi.

So look through your reject pile with a careful eye to see which pieces might be reused and repurposed into a different design than the one you originally had in mind. Then bite the bullet, fill out the proper forms and send off that forlorn silver to join the melting pot!