Jewelry casters are always on the lookout for metals and alloys that offer good castability, beauty, and economical prices to create sculptures, rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and other fine jewelry. One jewelry that has a goldfish color is Everdur Silicon Bronze. This alloy provides a wide range of benefits for castings.

What is Everdur Silicon Bronze?

Everdur silicon bronze is an alloy that contains roughly 95% copper along with lower amount of silicon and manganese. It comes in a light gold color as the alloy has very good fluidity and good ductility. So the alloy flows well when melted and cast to fill all intricate corners and points as well as has malleability to be formed into intricate details.

While having a lower tensile strength than jewelers’ manganese bronze and beryllium copper, Everdur silicon bronze does have an equal or greater strength than white bonze, art casters’ brass, zinc-based alloys, tin-based alloys, and lead-based alloys specifically used for sculptures and jewelry castings. The tensile strength is 55,000 p.s.i while the Brinell hardness is 85. Everdur silicon bronze does require higher pouring temperatures at 1850°F to 2250°F, which may hamper smaller jeweler and sculpture manufacturers with lower oven ranges.

Everdur Silicon Bronze Properties

When used for sculptures and jewelry making, Everdur silicon bronze has very good fluidity to move and fill within the mold during casting processes. It offers excellent corrosion resistance, which is essential for jewelry that may experience oxidation from oils from the skin or for sculptures used in outdoor exhibits and installations.

Another unique benefit to this metal alloy is that it experiences low drossing. When alloys harbor solid impurities, these impurities may not liquefy when the alloy is in a molten state and may rise to the surface. Once the metal cools, the impurities could impact the surface finish of the jewelry and sculpture or cause other deformities and problems. By having low dossing properties, the impurities rarely solidify within the molten metal to impact the finished product. In addition to the low dossing, the alloy also has a medium solidification range. So it doesn’t take an extraordinary high or low temperature to get the alloy to melt.

Many sculptures may use Everdur silicon bronze for their statues and figurines due to the alloy accepting a varying range of patinas. Patinas occur to metals during the aging process or from the use of certain acids. The patina signifies a change to the outside color of the sculpture. For copper and bronze metals, they may change to green, black, blue, or brown hues. This patina may be done to make a new sculpture or piece of artwork look like an antique without going through an aging process.

Here at Belmont Metals, we offer Everdur silicon bronze in cut pieces, down, cubes, and ingots. Contact us today for more information about this alloy.