Firing copper clay

In a previous post I mentioned how copper and bronze clay have to be fired in an oxygen free environment.  This also applies to steel clay, rose bronze clay and the new PMC Pro (a stronger form of silver clay that has some copper in it for strength.)

There are various containers for firing these clays.  I use a stainless steel container that gets a black coating on it during firing that is messy and dirty.  (My vacuum cleaner is seeing the light of day more often now.)  Even though there are containers that don't get a black coating I figure that I already had a container and might as well use it.  It's been working great so why mess with a good thing.

My friend Carol Scheftic takes a photo of her pieces before they go into the kiln so that if something goes wrong she knows where it was located in the container and thus may be able to figure out why the piece did not sinter.   I've started to do this too.   (It also helps my brain remember how many pieces are in there. ) It's not obvious when the firing is done because a one inch layer of carbon is covering the top.

Here's a photo of a load before firing.  Because the pieces need to be toward the back of the container the number of pieces that can be fired are minimal.  (Unlike silver which is fired on an open shelf.  Several shelves can be stacked with ceramic spacers between them which allows for even more pieces and the silver can be placed anywhere on the shelf.)  Because the firing time is shorter and there are more pieces in a firing, silver is much cheaper to fire.  But, much more expensive to buy.  I'm still trying to figure out if the cost of working with the base metal clays are really any cheaper in the long run.

Number crunching

It's that time of year and I've been counting every single jump ring and bead. (I'm anal that way!)

In some ways it's a good thing as it lets me know what I have. (Found some beautiful stones that I need to do something with.... a Peruvian pink opal for one. Lots of chances to do traditional bezel setting.)

In other ways, it's frying my brain. (Not that there is much brain left to fry!) But, I'm almost done. Now comes the transferring of the information to the computer. (I know... should have done it directly to the computer, but remember I'm anal.) My eyes are blurring. This is such a physical activity.

I always feel good when it's done, until my accountant emails me with questions and tells me things don't match up. I hate January (and not just because of the continual onslaught of snow.)

My new book "The Art of Enameling" by Linda Darty, came today. I'd rather be reading it.

A Copper Christmas

The copper pieces are done!! The above photo shows fired and polished pieces next to the unfired pieces.

It was a surprise when I took the lid off the stainless steel container they were fired in. I expected dark gray pieces of metal, but was greeted by a very orange color. After the first firing the pieces were a dark gray but that is probably because they were exposed to oxygen during that firing process which doesn't happen when they are buried in charcoal.

It is a messy firing though. The kiln has to be vacuumed out from all the black dust.

The construction joints were fine and they were what I was worried about. The tiny charm had a loop attached to the top and the oval earrings had a circle cut apart, put into the hole in the oval and the seam was pasted back together.

There were a couple of cracks though on the back of the disk earrings where the stones were. The cracks weren't anything major and I'm not going to do anything about them. The worst thing that happened had nothing to do with the copper clay. (I forgot to clean the stones and now my pretty pink czs are rather hazy.) They look okay since it is an even haze but I really liked the pink with the copper. (Oh, and peridot looks pretty with a haze too! That's why I have a last minute checklist posted on my wall. Obviously I don't look at it. Maybe I should move it over by the kiln. Uh, I have one on the wall by the kiln. What is it going to take? Usually once is enough but not in this case.)

Sorry, but my photos aren't the best. I didn't have time to take better ones but at least you get the idea. The finished pieces do have a patina added. The shiny copper was really pretty but the patina just added the right contrast for the textures to show.