Oh, Happy Day! Copper Success!

Just look at this pile of copper lusciousness! I guess third time's the charm (no pun intended) for me to have a successful copper firing. Everything sintered, and when I drop them onto the table they make a jingling sound like coins, not the "thunk" of un-sintered metal clay.

This time I used the two-phase firing schedule recommended to me by Lora Hart. First, I fired the pieces on an open kiln shelf at 555 degrees for one hour. Then I transfered them to the firing pan with the carbon and fired them at 1670 degrees for three and a half hours. And voila! Hard, shiny copper! I'm no scientist, but I think this has something to do with the binder burning off. You metal clayers out there know that when the binder burns there's a smell, right? When I put the fresh pieces in the firing pan with carbon I never smelled that smell. When they were on the open shelf the smell started when the kiln hit about 450 degrees, just like with silver.

These from the Fern Series have a patina applied to show off the texture. I'm not sure yet if I like this. The Liver of Sulphur darkens the entire piece a little bit. The bright, shiny color right out of the tumbler looks so nice, but I don't know if that will last over time. One of the benefits of using metal clay rather than sheet metal is the opportunity for wonderful textures and when you darken the recesses the texture shows up better. With silver there's more contrast, so the jury is still out on whether to patina copper, or not. Anyone out there have an opinion on this? Please leave me a comment on this, and links to photos would be great to help me make up my mind.

Copper Clay Update

If you read the previous post you'll see that I was soooo happy with my copper clay pieces. Now I'm thinking, not so much.

It appears that many of the pieces did not sinter. When I drilled holes through some of them in order to attach jump rings, there was the dreaded brown powder, meaning that the outside was a nice, solid, shiny copper but the inside was still powdery. And, a couple of them had parts attached with slip (watered down clay used like glue) and these parts popped off. In the first photo above you can see that the bail broke off. When I tried to drill a hole, it just crumbled. Since this was all experimental, I decided to try breaking one with my hands, and sure enough, "snap"! Broke in half like a saltine cracker. In the second photo you can see the one I intentionally broke. The center piece was put on with slip (it came off) and you can see the brown powder very clearly. I can rub it off with my fingers. This is not good. Fully sintered metal clay should be as strong as sheet metal. And, I want to be sure that none of my customers would ever encounter breakage.

I suspected several things that could have caused this. 1) I had too many pieces in the firing pan, causing the heat to be distributed unevenly. 2) I should have done a 2-phase firing. And 3) The kiln did not get hot enough.

So, I went online to my Etsy Metal Clay Team colleagues to see what their experiences were. Kelly Fehr disputed #1. She has fired as many as 60 pieces in a single firing, so I don't think that was it. She also says she has no problem using slip if a little lavender oil is mixed in with it.  Lorena Angulo makes large sculptural pieces out of copper clay and she told me that she has success when firing them at 1770F. I followed package instructions and only fired to 1700F. It now looks like that extra 70 degrees makes a big difference. Lora Hart was the one who originally told me about the 2-phase firing. First you fire the pieces on an open kiln shelf, then transfer them to the stainless steel pan with the activate carbon and fire them again. She was helpful in reminding me that this material is VERY new and that when silver metal clay came out around 15 years ago many artists had failures until the formula was improved. So, we're all esentially experimenting with this stuff.

I'm disappointed that my things didn't come out as planned, but it was a good learning experience for very little money, and Debbie, Torrey and I sure had a lot of fun with it last Sunday. I may try firing the remaining pieces from this first batch again and see if that solves the problem. I still have a little copper clay left in the package to use up and I'll do them all at once.

Here's a some successful copper clay pieces by Kelly and, Lorena. Lora is taking a break from her Etsy shop right now, but here's the link to her wonderful blog: Such and Such

Om Pendant by Kelly Fehr. Click HERE to go to the Etsy listing.

Copper Lines earrings by Lorena Angulo. Click HERE to go to the Etsy listing.

March is the cruelest month....

 Thanks to Ken Thomas for free use of his images.

I've been watching for signs of Spring. The Robins are back and the crocus have finally pushed their way through the soil. (Note to self: Plant more crocus next Fall.) We've had enough sunny days to melt almost all of the snow, but this rain and chill for the last week or so is starting to wear on me. I think it's worse to tease us with a few warm, sunny days and then fling us back into winter weather, than it was back in February when there was two feet of snow on the ground. It's supposed to be like that in February. By this time in March I'm ready for an instant warm up, windows open, birds chirping and being able to dig in the dirt. It's just not fair! And, the good ole Farmer's Almanac says we'll get a big snow in APRIL! They've been spot on so far this winter.

And, I'm ambiguous about daylight savings time. I like the idea of more light in the evenings,  but I really don't like going back to dark in the mornings when it's time to wake up. I've been getting way too much sleep, and when I get a late start to my day it throws me off -kilter until about 3:00. Plus, it seems to me that when we change our clocks it should be SPRING. ("Spring forward", after all.) That's probably because the time-change has been moved ahead by several weeks and I'm remembering how it used to be. I'm just soooo impatient for warm weather.

I've had a couple of boring days at Hands Gallery in the last week. Today is one of them. I think three people have walked through the door and one of them was the postman. Sales are still really poor and it's a wonder that we've been able to pay the bills, considering we were closed so many days due to treacherous roads. But, who's out shopping in a blizzard anyway? I've heard that all of the businesses in this area have suffered this winter - except for the ski slopes, of course.

Main Street Gallery re-opens for the season in a couple of weeks. It's always a shock when the season starts in Blowing Rock. Like, what? It's time to open the gallery again already? So, since I'm not a procrastinator, (I hate having things looming over me!) I've already started selecting the jewelry that I'll put in my display over there. I'm just grateful that we close that co-op during the winter and I didn't have to worry about driving on slick roads to get to work over there.

The latest Jewelry Making with Precious Metal Clay class started last night. It looks like I have a small, but enthusiastic group this time. So far it's lots of fun. I had been working quite a bit in my studio and have a kiln load almost full. I decided to wait and fire student work along with it, so that will happen tonight when I get home. Then, tomorrow morning will be like Christmas when I open the kiln and see what goodies are in there! I really wish ASU would let go of some money and buy a kiln for the jewelry studio, instead of me having to bring student work home and fire it in mine! And, the program director says he's going to have to go up on the cost of the class to cover his expenses. I'm talking with him about doing two sessions this summer, plus maybe a weekend workshop around a project with Copper Clay. I just have to come up with a proposal and present it to him. What kinds of things would you like to learn how to do in a weekend? Any ideas are welcome at this point.

New Toys!

This is the new copper clay that I've been itching to try. It's much more affordable than the silver clay - about $20 for 100 grams, versus $90 for the silver. It's always appeared fussier to me because it has to be fired in a near oxygen-free environment to avoid the nasty oxidation that copper tends to get. Therefore, it gets fired in a pan with activated carbon. So, I ordered all the necessary equipment and will start playing with it soon. I should be able to make some large pieces that are very reasonably priced. Stay tuned!