metal clays -- Possible RepRap material?

I apologize in advance if this post is useless or redundant. I just read about "precious metal clays" that that can be used to make "solid" metal jewelry pieces. You sculpt the clay then fire it (bake it in a kiln). They have silver, gold, bronze and copper clays. Maybe this or something similar could be extruded to form wires etc?

Sorry for the off topic post.

Ben

I think this is the same thing as solder paste, which is syringe-depositable.

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We've got some bronze clay research notes and chatter in here:
[dev.forums.reprap.org]

But no one's had a chance to work on it. IIRC, the clays dry to make a greenware piece with. One then fuses it ("sinters" it) fuse to make a solid (~2% void by volume) piece.

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Sorry for the off topic post.
There's no such thing, in this forum. RepRap is for everything.

Hi Ben,

for brazing thin platinum wires on gold-pads i mixed a paste from eutectic gold-tin-spheres (80%gold, 20%tin) with gold-dust and dexpanthenol as solvent and receiven a paste i could dispense with a syringe and sinter to solid with a doede-laser around 4 Watts of emitting power in a spot of 0.1mm diameter.

As this is a really expensive mixture i'm trying at home with other metal-powders and sintering with a fiber-laser capable of 50Watts in a spot of 0.02mm diameter.

The biggest problem is the fusing of the first layer to the base - solder-pastes and melted metal-powders normally forms blobs and wouldn't stick to the bed, but will stick to solid metal.

Maybe i can find or make a non conducting (plastic-) base with embedded metallic particles, which i can 'activate' with the laser in specific areas, so the fused metal-droplets can stick --- then i can fab conducting trays, wires or thicker 3D-parts on nonconducting material for PCB's or 3D-MIDS ...

Viktor