Nothing stays the same

Life changes.  We all know that.  But why do my metal clay suppliers have to change?

Last year it was the end of Whole Lotta Whimsy, the supplier I used the most.  One of the things that I could only find at WLW was the two and four inch, metal backed PPP plates.  All the other supplies were available elsewhere but not the PPP plates.  I asked Tonya Davidson if she knew another place to get them and she said she was working on it.  Yes, I can buy big sheets of the plates and cut them myself....... but that creates more work and theirs were so much nicer than I can do.

Today, I heard that the Mitsubishi Co. will no longer be making PMC Standard.  The standard was the very first version of PMC clay.  It shrinks 30%, has to be fired at 1650 degrees for two solid hours and is the weakest of the metal clays.  But there are times it is really handy to have the Standard formula.

Awhile back I needed a dragonfly for a pair of earrings.  The dragonfly mold I had was too big, so I made it with the standard clay which shrank it considerably.  I took the new smaller dragonfly, made another mold and made it again two more times.  This gave me the right size for the piece I was making and a batch of dragonflies to use in other pieces.  

The shrinkage is also good because standard clay carves like butter in it's dry state.  This allows the artist to work big (which makes carving easier.)  Then when the piece shrinks it looks even better.  (I understand that newspaper cartoons are drawn large and then shrunk for the same reason.)  

I hope enough metal clay artists will raise a fuss about this.  Standard may not be used as much as the other formulas but it has it's value.  

 

Shrinkage

Remember the Seinfeld episode where George was apologizing for shrinkage? Well this post is about shrinkage but not that shrinkage. It's about the shrink factor associated with metal clay.

Pmc standard shrinks 30%, Pmc+ and Pmc3 shrink about 12-15%. Most of the time I don't really pay much attention to the shrinkage factor since it doesn't really matter, unless I'm making rings or something that has to fit together. (Then it becomes a math adventure which is okay when all works out. But it can drive me to tears when it doesn't. I use to get stressed and cry when I couldn't figure out those darn word problems in high school.)

Shrinkage came in handy for my latest project. The customer had seen a dragonfly on a dicrohic piece and wanted a dragonfly on her earrings and matching necklace. The dragonfly was rather large, much too large for what she wanted. The solution was to use my dragonfly mold with Pmc standard which would shrink considerably, fire it and make another mold of the smaller dragonfly. That piece would work on the necklace but not the earrings. So....... it was use the new mold with Pmc standard and fire it again, thus reducing it's size again and making yet another mold. (The white dragonflies are fired, just not brushed yet.) The third mold did the trick. It was just the right size.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all the extra dragonflies!

Flexibility

I'm very flexible, though not in my joints. I'm flexible when it comes to changing direction, going with the flow, rolling with the punches so to speak.

This post is about the flexibility of Standard PMC. It's been awhile since I've worked with the standard version so I'd forgotten how different it is.

CeCe Wire's newest book has a forged link necklace. She made the links out of PMC Standard and hammered them with a chasing hammer before they were fired. The necklace must be pretty long as it's made of fourteen links. The directions included a pattern for the link.

The basic premise of the necklace looked like it would make a good chain for my glass piece that turned cloudy. But, I didn't want that length so I only made six. I also wanted to match the texture on the piece itself so I rolled the clay on the same texture plate. CeCe said to roll the clay to the thickness of craft sticks. That thickness seemed to be needed since she hammered the dried clay. I made my links four cards thick. I think that was a mistake as the long links seem to bend very easily. They are also very long, even with the 30% shrinkage of standard clay. When sanding the clay I could feel the give of the clay, which I don't notice with the newer versions. I like standard clay for it's shrinkage, but for my links it wasn't the right choice.

Tomorrow I'm going to remake the links in PMC3. I only need two as I've decided to add some agate beads (which match the hazy color of the glass) and I'm going to make them shorter (and thicker.) I'll share pictures as soon as it's done (in the next few days.)

Now, I have to decide what to do with six, long, flexible links. Guess I'll get out my jewelry saw and files. Time to make some more earrings.