Wet inlay using copper and bronze

In the last post I talked about the "dry" technique of inlaying metal clay.  This post will look at the "wet" technique.

Wet inlay is achieved by adding "wet clay" to the dried backing piece.  The base piece is created using something to create a "deep design."  That could be created by rolling the clay onto a deep texture or a PPP plate of your own design.  Since the class is about learning technique, I did not try to get creative with the design and used one of Carol's new textures plates.

Copper clay shrinks less than the bronze clay when fired.  Therefore it is best to inlay the bronze into the copper so there is less chance of cracking.  (Which can be repaired but requires additional firing time.)  My bronze in copper piece needed more finishing (basically I didn't know exactly what I wanted it to be) so I brought it home to finish. 

But I did make a copper in bronze piece (since I had never done that before.)   I wanted to see what cracking might be involved with doing it that way.  Luckily, mine didn't crack.  

The middle of the flower has a slightly different look to it than the rest of the piece. (It does not show up in the photo though.)  The Baldwin's patina acted differently on it.  The only thing we could think might have caused this was some alloying going on between the copper and the bronze.  

In order for the patina to work it's best, it is important to have the surface of the two clays even and very smooth.  Using a rotary tool, we started with 220 grit emery paper and sanded (a lot.)  After that we switched to 400 grit and finally finished up with 1000 grit.  Nice and smooth.  Actually, the more you can do in the dry state the better.  It will save time afterwards and make your life easier.  

   

Dry inlay using copper and bronze clay

Another thing we did in Carol's class was Hadar's inlay technique.  Again, this wasn't the first time I've done this technique but I did have some things to learn to improve my pieces.

Carol refers to the two inlay techniques as "dry" and "wet."   In the dry technique a dry piece of clay is pushed into a wet piece of clay.

After firing and polishing, the two metals look very much alike.  Adding Baldwin's patina to the piece brings out the contrast by darkening the copper.  Baldwins has no effect on the bronze.  

I had never done the dry technique before so this was a first.  What was also a first was how much polishing was required on the inlay process.  Yes, I've done this before but had never polished mine as highly as we did this weekend.  (That Carol was a slave driver....... LOL!)

Carol demonstrating the polishing process with Pete looking on.

Testing the freshly fired pieces.

One of the first things we did was test the pieces to make sure they were fully sintered (completely solid metal.)  That was done by taking a coarse wheel to the back of them.  

My next post will talk about the "wet" inlay technique.