Metal mosaics : customizing designs with homemade shibuichi and shakudo

The need to differentiate and customize in the current market has driven many jewelry designers and manufacturers to investigate and embrace alternative metals. One dynamic option for making multi-colored metalwork derives from traditional Japanese artists, who create metal mosaics by patinating shakudo and shibuichi alloys with niiro solution. Shakudo alloys contain copper (Cu) and gold (Au), while shibuichi alloys contain copper and silver (Ag). Using the niiro approach, metalworkers immerse the alloys into a patination solution to produce various hues. Shakudo patinates to colors ranging from brown to blue/black; shibuichi patinates in a range of dark to light gray colors. Currently, the production of these alloys and their patination is an unreliable process. Our research, presented first at the Santa Fe Symposium on Manufacturing Technology in May 2009, aimed to develop reliable alloy production and a safe, easy-to-use, and repeatable patination process using standard ingredients available from chemical suppliers. The following article summarizes our findings.