The Story of Metal Clay

In the early 1990s, Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corporation redesigned their manufacturing facilities used to refine gold used in their microchips. The new facility’s director, metallurgist Dr. Masaki Morikawa, was inspired to create a type of modelling clay from the precious scrap left over from the manufacturing process. His experiments led to the development of the brand Precious Metal Clay (PMC®).
Originally conceived as a craft jewellery making medium, the first experiments were made with 24k gold, and then with .999 fine silver (A later version of gold added fine silver for strength to create a 22k gold metal clay).  The first objects were golden, ceremonial teacups, unfortunately these no longer exist.
Around this same time, scientists working for Aida Chemical Industries developed a similar material now known as Art Clay™ Silver (ACS). Patents for both brands were granted in 1994, debuting in Japan just months apart.
When the Japanese patents ran out in 2008, base metal clays were developed. Various artists had been experimenting with making copper clay with limited success but it wasn’t until Bill Struve discovered that the secret to sintering base metal clays lay in using an oxygen-deprived atmosphere that firing became more consistent. Bill created and released Metal Adventures brand clays, followed soon after by Hadar Jacobson’s eponymous Hadar’s Clay™.
Sterling silver (.925), was introduced in 2011 and needs to be fired buried in carbon like the base metal clays (a process that some consider messy and time consuming), other forms of sterling were created which can easily be fired in an open kiln. Stronger than pure .999 silver, the copper enriched blends of .950 sterling, and .960 sterling came on the market in 2016.
A  960 blend of half Sterling silver clay and half fine silver metal clay makes a strong clay that can be fired on an open shelf in the kiln.
Nearly thirty years after the first metal clays became commercially available, there are more than 21 manufacturers around the world making a variety of different metal clay in various alloys that produce unique colours and working properties.