Kiln Disaster & Melted a Days Work :(

I bought this Prometheus Pro 1 kiln at the Enamellers Guild Conference. I was quite excited about it (I'd been looking for a more transportable kiln and without vat this was a bargain!)
Above you can see the picture of it's first firing ~ with an empty chamber, just in case!. As some of you know I normally fire at 950 degrees, for 1 to 2 hours. This has worked fine in my Paragon SC2 ever since I got it (a number of years ago).....A jeweller friend of mine was round (we were doing some tube setting together) but as it was a brand new kiln I still checked the piece after about 20 minutes. At this point, looking through the little view hole, it was fine & pristine..... Another 20 minutes later and the piece was the puddle of molten fine silver you can see above.

We left the door open as the metal was literally hissing and bubbling...This picture was taken after the shock & "Oh my Gods" had died down and after I went and got my camera (and it's STILL molten).

Once it had cooled you can see why we were so worried - the metal had been melting it's way through the tile!!!

The supplier said that I should only fire at 800 and he wasn't suprised it melted. When I pointed out fine silvers melting point was higher than 950, the return answer was that was didn't matter as the instructions say to fire Art Clay at 800........but,

needless to say I'll now be firing at 899oC in my "big boy" and a little less in the Prometheus
Nic xx

P.S> If anyone knows how to get a lump of tile off a very melted 4 1/2 hours work please let me know....(and if you like the "Break The Rules" art then visit http://www.fredbabb.com/)

Beads and Beyond Feature

This month Beads and Beyond magazine have covered my work in a two page "Meet and Greet" feature. It's such an honour to be featured in a major magazine article and I'm so pleased with how the photos and work turned out.
My shop has benefited as has my website and it's a wonderful thing to be able to show the family. My mum and hubby have always supported my work, but there were a few folks who thought I was mad to give up a well paid software job & pursue my creative dream.....
Artisan friends of mine assure me I'm not alone in seeing how much more there is to learn (or guilty of forgetting how far I've already travelled).

For those of you on the same journey as myself....a few quotes I've found inspiring.
"Use what talent you possess ~ the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."
Henry Van Dyke
"The purpose of Art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls"
Pablo Picasso

Enjoy your journey...
Nic xx

First Experience of Delft Casting....

Wouldn't this be a great way of replicating PMC masterpieces??
First of all, get the set with the DVD and then watch it! If you haven't got the DVD then there's a very good set of YouTube vids by Andrew Berry...

Here's what I did to make the first of two ball ends for a bangle
1) Clear your work surface, get the clay out and chop it up (I used a metal edge ruler and it was easy)
2) Make sure the clay is soft and mouldable
3) Using the smaller of the two rings turn it upside down (so the joining part is on the bottom)
4) Force the clay into the mould packing it tightly then hammer down the excess on the top.
5) Scrape off the excess to give yourself a flat surface (metal edge ruler again)
6) Turn over and push your master 1/2 way in (in this case my round plastic bead).
7) Use the edge of the ruler to make sure the clay meets the edge of the master.
8) Talcum Powder the master then brush off excess with a soft brush 9) Join up the rings making sure the alignment score marries up
10) Fill the top half with clay & Repeat the tamping down process
11) Gently wiggle the two halves apart
12) Carefully remove the master. 13) Poke a hole from the cavity (where the master was) through to the back I used a small drill bit
14) Following the instructions on the vids carve a funnel that ends in the hole you poked in the cavity (this is what you pour the metal down so it needs to have plenty of room).
15) Clear Debris & tamp down any loose clay
16) Because my bead was round I then did angled holes from the edge to let the air escape.You can see this best on the delft video.
17) Join up the two rings aligning the marks again
18) Using your pre-prepared crucible, heat up the metal until it's a moving liquid.
19) Keeping the flame on the metal pour the metal into the moulds spout. (There will be Flames!)20) You can quench the casting in water (rings and all) as the Delft clay doesn't absorb water. NEAT!
21) Once cool gently ease the two halves apart to inspect your handywork.(please ignore the outside holes ~ in the end I did 4 diagonal ones) This part was quite exciting!!

22) Carefully remove the casting and discard any blackened clay (the rest can be reused).

I love my little Sputnik - Here's a closer look
23) Start the finishing process.....You may want to leave the sprue on if it's a fiddly job (you can saw it off last)Here's the casting looking a bit more like the Ball end of the bangle it will be soldered onto! Hope you enjoyed sharing my first experiences....it wasn't half as scary as I thought it would be....
Why not have a go yourself? Though I hasten to add at your own risk, yadda yadda don't set yourself on fire (did I mention there are youtube vids?)

Nic xx

Making a 2 part - riveted pendant.

Here's my finished Tin & PMC Mixed Media Pendant & below is how I made it.

Making a 2 layer Pendant1) First find a lovely tin you like and work roughly how big you need the centre cut out to be.
2) Roll out clay 1mm to 1.5mm thick and cut out back shape
3) Repeat for the top using the same cutter (adding texture if required)
4) Cut out an inner shape using a needle pick or slightly smaller cutter.
5) Let all the pieces dry.
6) Once dry refine the INNER edges of your front piece.
7) Line up the front and back then sand the edges for a perfect fit.
8) Drill pilot holes in the front only to make it easier to drill once fired.
9) Either add a silver clay bail at this point OR allow space to solder one on later.
10) FIRE the clay and allow to cool.

11)Using the fired pieces as a template, cut out the tin that will be sandwiched between the rivets.
12)Check for alignment and trim as needed.
13) Ball up the ends of three pieces of 1mm sterling silver wire
14) Line up layers & using a 1mm drill bit drill through all three layers (one hole only)
15) Put the wire through the hole and turn pendant over cut wire just under 1mm away from the back of the pendant.
16) Remove wire use file to take point from cut end (one or two strokes of the file at most)
17) Re-insert wire place pendant face down then hit the cut end in a circular motion ~ you're aiming to make a mini mushroom shape.
18) Turn pendant back to front side and if required flatten the end of the ball.
(this also tends to flatten the mushroom on the back even more)
19) Repeat one by one for the other two (or more) holes ~ drilling each in turn until the pendant is fully riveted.
20) Polish and enjoy!
Nicola x

I'm going to America!

I'm so excited & just had to share ~ I've booked to attend the bi-annual PMC Guild Conference at Purdue University, Indianna USA. It's so exciting to be part of this conference and meet PMC artists from all over the world. Days and days of learning and sharing ideas about metal clay!
You'll find the conference brochure HERE.

But here are just some of the things I'll be seeing...

Incorporating Dichroic Glass into Metal Clay ~ Sherrie Styx
Bronze and PMC with Other Materials ~ Carmen-Alvarez Keefer
Bronze, Copper, and Silver ~ Weers and Hamilton
Textures & Handmade Stencils in BronzClay ~ Janet Harriman
Enamel Illusions (faux enamel) ~ Cindy Silas
Technical Textures ~ Louise Shadonix
Repousse using Photoshop ~ Marian Ward
Water Etching on Hollow Forms ~ Cathy Davies-Paetz
Failsafe Endcaps for Metal Clay ~ RobinBeth Faulkner
Textures and Etching ~ Sherri Haab
How Do I Finish? ~ Elizabeth Agte
Enameling on Copper Clay ~ Yolanda Nieuwboer
Glass Clay ~ Barry Kaiser

Only 6 months to go! Now I just have to book flights and a hotel and maybe a pre-conference course and make some charms for the charm swap (those 6 months are gonna fly by!)
nic xx

Count your Blesties!

I was commenting on a beautiful necklace on Joy Funnells blog when this came up in word verification...
Isn't it great when sometimes life has it's own rewards.....
Give a Little, Get a Little
& remember to notice when life sends you its little Blesties ;^)
Nic x

Art Clay Copper - Firing & Polishing

Copper pieces all laid out ready for firing. The kiln needs to get to 970 degrees C. I used my enamelling fork to lift the pieces into the hot kiln. The temperature is held for 30 mins & you take them out HOT!
The pieces are dropped hot from the kiln into cold water. This was difficult as many of them were trying to stick to the fibre shelf. (Prying red hot bits of copper off a fibre shelf is not fun!)

Once pickled (which has left my pickle pot in a right mess) the pieces were tumbled in shot for 45mins. Very easy to see the copper in the steel shot (a pleasant change from trying to spot bits of silver).Dried & separated from the shot you can see a few bits of scale which I plan to take off with a burr. The scale seems to stick to straight pieces more than any other shape. The strips were very bendy, dead soft copper (the ones I rolled 4 cards and 6 cards thick).
I plan to hammer these to work harden them.

Some of the Finished pieces - Five Art Clay Rings (hmmm maybe I should make some calling birds next!). I've done a little smashing on my ring mandrel but plan to do some more ~ these definitely have possibilities...maybe the centre of some spinner rings?
The sizes they ended up were:

9 ended up an 8 (size P)
10- ended up a little over 9 (R1/4)
10 ended up 8 3/4 (almost R)
11 ended up 9 3/4 (approx S 1/2)
12 ended up 10 1/2 (little over U)
The 12 was done with the Red, 6 card, Rio slats and I prefer the result so would suggest using 6 card minimum.

Hope that helps & the end result is Art Clay Copper is well worth giving a try!

Nic xx