Metal Clay is Cool
When metal clay first came out, I was curious enough to take a few classes. My biggest beef about it, though, was the fact that back then you needed to use a kiln for the burnout process. I do have a kiln, but I had always used it for fused glass, and with glass, I had never needed a pryometer, so I didn't get one when I bought the kiln. But, I soon learned the hard way that with clay, the pyrometer was mega important, unless, of course, you enjoy spending time forming your metal clay creations only to find them turned into puddles of silver once you fired them in the kiln.
I guess I wasn't the only jewelry maker bummed about this, and eventually, the manufacturers of metal clay (Precious Metal Clay from Mitsubishi Materials and Art Clay from Aida Chemical Industries) came up with low-fire clays.
Essentially, these mean no more kiln because they don't take as much heat to burn out the organic material in the clay. I say "essentially" because even with the low-fire clay, most items can't be very large, no larger than a silver dollar for example.
Now you have a few different non-kiln options for burn out. For example, you can use a hand-held butane torch, like this one from Fire Mountain Gems & Beads.
You can also use a hot pot, available from PMC Supply, which also allows you to fire small items, 20 grams or less. There's also a way to use your gas stove to do do this as well.
I've been doing some experimenting again with metal clay, and no, still no pryometer on the kiln, so I'm becoming a big fan of the low-fire clay. Hopefully, I'll have a few items to show off to you soon.
jewelry, metal, Chik, Fashion, clay, accessories, torch, pmc, art, design, butane
