Accent Gold For Silver paint is used to apply 24 carat pure gold highlights, texture, or decoration, to fine-silver jewellery, including pieces made from Aida Art Clay silver clay or Mitsubishi PMC precious metal clay.

AGS comes as two parts: a screw-top pot containing one gramme of 24 carat pure gold powder, and a dropper-bottle of non-toxic water-based medium.

AGS can be applied with a small brush or a shaped tool to fired silver clay. After drying, the piece is fired again to sinter the gold and bond it to the silver. After cooling, the gold can be burnished, or given a matte, textured, or lustre finish.

Accent Gold is pure 24 carat gold, whereas Aida Art Clay gold clay paste and Mitsubishi Aura 22 are both 22 carat alloys: 91.7% gold and 8.3% silver.

For most effects, AGS is easier to use, and less wasteful, than gold leaf, especially on contoured surfaces where gold leaf would probably tear. And it's thicker than an electro-plated layer.

Accent Gold, through Kitiki and SilverClay, is an EU Accent Gold distributor, on-line retailer, and learning centre for Accent Gold For Silver, made by Jewelry Material Innovations in the US.

To mix Accent Gold For Silver, add five drops of medium to the gold powder and stir until it's a thick cream: you can add more medium, but only one drop at a time.

It will last a long time at room temperature, with the top on, but you can add a little more medium to freshen it up: be careful not to over-dilute it as it will be too thin to use successfully. Some people use water.

To minimise waste, stir it with a piece of thin wire, such as a paper clip. Don't use a matchstick, as tiny slivers of wood may get stirred in: these will burn away during firing leaving a tiny hole or a fine crack. Always keep the pot the right way up so that the paint settles in the bottom.

Before using AGS on Art Clay or PMC, the piece must be fired and allowed to cool. Don't touch the area where you'll apply the paint. And don't polish or burnish it as a little roughness helps adhesion.

Generally, apply the AGS with a small brush or a shaped tool, such as a clay shaper, in a reasonably smooth, thick, layer which. If you get it on unwanted areas, clean up very carefully with a modelling knife, returning any clean bits to the bottle.
It's a good idea to keep a brush just for AGS so that, for example, you don't use a brush with tiny left-over particles of dry Art Clay still in the brush hairs.

Let it dry naturally. If you can see through the paint, it's not thick enough: so apply a second layer. Don't dry the paint too fast, such as with a hair dryer, or it may not adhere well to the silver after firing.

The manufacturer recommends that Accent Gold is fired in a kiln, as described below. However, for many people, it seems to work better when torch-fired: perhaps it needs an oxygen-rich environment.

Fire the piece by putting it into a kiln on a kiln shelf both preheated to 900°C. Put the piece on the shelf, close the door, and let the temperature return to 900°C: no higher. Fire it for seven minutes, remove it, and let it cool naturally. If the paint is thin, longer firing may cause discolouration as the silver diffuses into the gold.

It's OK to fire several pieces at once, although the time required for the kiln to return to 900°C will be slightly longer if more silver is used. If coverage of the gold is not complete, apply more AGS in the areas where the silver is showing, dry the piece, and fire it again.

If you've fired Art Clay with a torch, successfully, this will be easy: you just need to maintain the correct temperature. Lay your piece on a kiln shelf or similar material and heat it with a butane torch. Allow it to reach a medium orange colour, not a bright orange: dim the lights in order to see and maintain the colour. Fire it for three to four minutes, and be careful not to melt the piece.
The kiln shelf will get very hot and burn most worktops: so lay it in a tray of vermiculite, on ceramic fibre blocks, or on some other heat resistant material.

After firing, let the piece cool naturally. It can be polished with a burnishing tool, matted with a wire brush, or lustered by tumbling with stainless steel shot in water.

Although unlikely, if the gold layer comes off the silver piece, the firing temperature may have been too low. Add paint to the bare areas and repeat the firing process.

Applying AGS to sterling silver needs a different technique. Heat the piece to a dull red until a dark oxide forms on the surface, use a mild acid to remove the scale, and rinse the piece in water. Repeat this cycle until no more oxide forms: the surface will now be pure silver. AGS can now be applied as with fine silver.