Ways To Fire Precious Metal Clay To Make Handmade Metal Beads And Pendants

3 Ways To Fire Precious Metal Clay To Make Handmade Metal Beads And Pendants<br /><br />Heres how this clay works. First you form the pieces, let them dry, then use a firing method to burn off the organic binder. Fine metal particles are suspended in an organic binder that can be burnt away leaving the metal fused into the form you shape it.<br /><br />You can use umpteen different methods to mold, texture, and shape your precious metal clay into brilliant and elaborate shapes, but these are beyond the scope of this article! This article shares different ways to fire your creations once they are formed and dried.<br /><br />Smaller pieces less than 25 g can be hand torch fired. Also, its best to make sure your piece is fairly even in thickness and relatively simple. More complex pieces have a tendency to fare best in a kiln.<br /><br />Heres how to fire your pieces using a simple butane torch. Make sure youuse a a heat proof and fire proof surface like a soldering pad or a fire brick with a piece of aluminum sheet underneath. Youll want a well ventilated area. Using your butane torch I use a Blazer torch, start aiming your flame on the dry precious metal clay piece. At first youll see a little bit of smoke as the organic binder burns off. Then you just need to get the piece to turn a nice pinky orange colour you can see it quite clearly as long as your light isnt too bright Move the torch away a bit and then forward again if the glow fades. Just dont go really close with the torch once you have got up to temperature or you will melt the detail on your work.<br /><br />A small kiln is ideal for firing metal clay. Even heat and higher temperatures will usually produce stronger pieces, and some types of PMC like bronze clay, original PMC, most copper and gold clay will only really fire properly in a kiln.<br /><br />What type of kiln is best? Any kiln will work, but if you are shopping now, Precious Metal Clay kilns are available. Kinds of are table top kilns. They are very small as kilns go. They run on regular household electricity, but they do need a three prong outlet.<br /><br />To use, just follow the guidelines from the kiln manufacturer.<br /><br />3. Hot Pot or Other Gas Ring/ Metal Screen Setup<br /><br />A specialized PMC firing product, called the Hot Pot that you can find at precious metal clay stockists. The Hot Pot makes it easy to fire pmc without a kiln and is ideal for people who dont like using a torch. The Hot Pot uses a sterno like fuel to fire your jewelry projects. When the fuel burns out, your jewelry is done. Its a very simple, low tech and affordable option to create your own jewelry.<br /><br />To use the Hot Pot, you fill the provided terra cotta pot with fuel, then place your dried metal clay project onto the wire grid. Finally, you light the fuel with a long match. Once your fuel burns out, your creation is fired and ready for polishing.