PMC stands for Precious Metal Clay. It was developed by Mitsubishi Materials of Japan in the early 90's and came to the US around 1996. It is composed of microscopic silver or gold molecules mixed with an organic binder and water.

It has the consistency of modeling clay (although it does not contain any real clay, it is simply clay-like) and can be sculpted into any shape imaginable. Once the water in the clay has dried, the piece is very fragile and considered 'greenware' just like ceramic clay. In this state it can easily be sanded and carved for further embellishment. The final step is to fire the clay in a kiln, this is called the sintering process. Sintering burns out the organic binder in the clay and causes the metal molecules to come closer together until they fuse. After sintering, pieces are solid metal and can be hammered, drilled, filed, sawed, soldered, polished, enameled, etc.

PMC comes in 3 metal forms, Fine Silver .999 (pure silver), 90% Silver Alloy .900 (an alloy of silver & copper) and 22K Gold (an alloy of gold and silver). It is also available in a lump form, pre-loaded into a syringe, as a paste, and as a thin flexible sheet (PMC+ only).

There are also 4 different versions of PMC silver to choose from, each has a different set of characteristics as far as consistency and firing times. They are as follows:
*PMC Standard (Original Version): .999 Pure Silver, 28% shrinkage, fires at 1650 for 2 hrs only
*PMC+ (2nd Generation): .999 Pure Silver, 10-15% shrinkage, fires from 1470 for 30min to 1650 for 10min, can fire longer
*PMC3 (3rd Generation): .999 Pure Silver, 10-15% shrinkage, fires from 1110 for 45min to 1290 for 10min, can fire hotter & longer
*PMC Pro (Newest Version): .9000 Silver Alloy (silver mixed with copper), 15-20% shrinkage, fires in activated carbon at 1400 for 1 hour