Fire in the Hole! New Paragon SC2 Kiln & Copper

At the beginning of March I decided I WAS going to take the next step in my obsession with metal clay and get a larger kiln. I love my Ultra Lite but it's to small to do anything larger than 2.5" diameter AND I can't do copper in it. SO at the end of March I ordered a Paragon SC2 kiln from Paragon rep Pam East.

How excited was I when less than two weeks later my new kiln arrived? :o) VERY! BUT... fear of the next step creeped in and it took me three weeks to open the box and 2 more weeks to fire it for the first time.

Here's my set-up.
Cleared out the rest of my garage corner and set up a 6' work station for "Blue" (my appropriately named SC2) and my enamel station. It's a bit "hoopty-bo-bo" but it works! Supplies - 1 - metal file cabinet, 1 - 16" x 16" x 2" cement stepping stone, 2 - 18" x 18" x 1/2" Travertine Tiles, 1 6' x 16" heavy-duty metal closet shelf, 5 - 12" x 12" x 1/4" Pinkish Marble Tiles. These, all combined together = one heck of a cool work area. :o) (I also borrow a corner of it to hold my light cube when taking photos... but I'm working on a new area for that.)

TONIGHT I fired up "Blue" for the first time. Did a pre-fire to get all the dust out and burn off any residue from my kiln furniture. Followed the great instructions that Pam sent with the purchase of my new kiln - much easier to understand than the garbly-goop that came w/ the kiln. Successful pre-fire! And yes dad, I had an extinguisher and my cell phone handy! :o)

THEN I heated it up to 1780 because I had a pair of copper earrings waiting to be fired. Of course, they've been waiting to be fired for 2 1/2 months. I purposely created them so that I would HAVE to get over the fear of first fire of "Blue" in order to get them done. They were too big torch fire! I had also done some quickie copper earring pieces from a mold I have so that I could test 'face up, face down' of firing Art Clay Copper on a shelf. See in my head I wondered - if I put it face down will it oxidize LESS or should it be face up.

I positioned the pieces on my small kiln shelf that came with "Blue" (the big one was already in and sitting on 1/2" stilts to allow for air flow and there were 2" stilts laying on their side to make them 1" above the floor waiting for the copper filled shelf to be placed on them) and waited for it to get up to 1780.

Note: I had a copper pod go to pieces after being fired for 30 mins in carbon and then picked, tumbled and refired w/ a torch to fix an 'issue'. I emailed Pam and told her exactly what had been done and asked for help and her recommendation was - if it's fired in carbon it needs to be fired for 3 1/2 hours. If it's done on the shelf - which she recommends for Art Clay Copper it's 30 mins at 1780, direct on the shelf. SO those are the directions I followed.

The kiln hit 1780 and I was ready. I picked up the shelf in some tongs opened the door, slid the shelf in - DANG 1780 is hot! - and then quickly closed the door. I wasn't that quick because it took approx 3 1/2 mins to get back up to 1780. Then the fun started... the binder started to burn off like it does normally - little flame... BUT the cool thing was (and I didn't know this so no pic) because there is limited oxygen the smoke that results swirls and twirls and looks so totally cool in the kiln (Love my window!). Then we wait. (NOTE: Pic is actually "Blue" cooling down after firing.)

30 mins later the kiln starts to beep and it's done. NOW... instructions are - pull the pieces out and immediately put into cold water to get as little oxidation on the pieces as possible and the cold water would help pop what oxidation did form off. WELLL... I didn't realize that the pieces may 'stick' to the shelf. So as I pull the shelf out and tip it over, nothing is falling out so what do I do?
I stuff the whole shelf upside down into the water ... bye, bye shelf! LOL! I had fire paper and why I did not use it I am not sure but next time, to be sure I will!!! (Pic is the remnants of the shelf. Kind of interesting. The pieces that came out had some areas of 'thick' oxidation. But the pieces that 'stuck' left that thick layer behind on the shelf.)

It sounded like pop corn as the oxidized copper popped off the pieces in the water bowl. Here's the results after I pulled them out of the water... Here's a pic of the pieces immediately out of the water.

The right pic shows the four pieces for the 'face-down, face-up' test. Unfortunately I forgot to pay attention to which was which but... here's my guess... the pair on the left were face up - and the back (shown on the lower left) was on the shelf and that is what stuck. The others.. the back (shown lower right) were probably up in the air and the oxidation is still there because there was nothing for it to stick to.

The left photo here show the back and the front of the larger earrings that have been very patiently waiting for a firing. These were put face down on the shelf BUT the design is raised. I used a stencil of a vine and used copper slip to fill in the stencil so that it is raised off the earrings. Because of this piece would not lay flat on the shelf which is PROBABLY why the oxidation did not stick to the shelf. BUT... I like it on this pair. We'll see how much comes off in pickling.

Right now, the pieces are in the pickle. NOTE... I have been using Silver Prep from Cool Tools to clean silver and copper... I recently bought the natural "Pickle It" recently released by Metal Clay Supply and not very excited about it. I ended up adding some Silver Prep to it and it's working much faster now. Maybe going back to my Silver Prep for future orders.

Cross fingers that the cleaning goes well because I have got some GLORIOUS Lampwork Beads from Bastille Bleu Lampwork Beads that will be used on the larger pair and some really sweet little natural beads for the little pieces.

Nervous Adventures in Copper & Lampwork BeadsApril 16, 2010

Greetings friends!!

Welcome to my nervous adventures in Copper and Lampwork Beads! I have already admitted my newly acquired addiction to beads... no, not just any beads but HAND-CRAFTED, Made in the USA, Lampwork beads. And not just any - I get mine from some very talented deale... ahhh artisans!

One of these is Canyon Echos - I purchased a couple of sets from her, the first being Desert Dreams. I'm sooo nervous about using these beads! They are so pretty - and professional and... oi! OK so, I saw this set and even though it has silver in it, I thought COPPER! For some reason I kept seeing wood when I look at these organic matte beads. That led me to thinking about bark... branches... you know - wood.

I pulled out my design book back in Feb and kept doodling a bail that is based on a tutorial by Deb Fitz of Paradise Cove. Except my bail kept turning into a piece of wood. Like a cut down branch w/ a thin branch still attached and swirling around to encompass the focal bead.

I have also fallen in love with Viking Knit Chain - and I learned to do this (thanks to one of my other deal... ahh enabler... ahhh artisans Nikki at Bastille Bleu). I kept seeing my chunky bail sliding on the viking knit chain.

That meant I needed end caps to finish off the chain and lead to the rest of my pretty Desert Dreams beads. Finish that off with a copper closure and POOF you have my first 'real' piece of creativity.

I used Art Clay Copper to create the branch, endcaps, and closure pieces. I crafted them and added the texture by hand before they dried. I feel more comfortable right now creating the texture of the bark when the pieces are wet rather than carving when they are dry. I fired the pieces w/ a butane torch, pickled and then tumbled them.

One of my evenings watching Project Runway I wove the Viking Knit chain. I love this chain. I love the fact that you start w/ a dowel and wire and end up with this smooth, silky feeling chain! And depending on how 'thick' you like it you can practically make it fit whatever need you have.

My hope is that the artisan of the Desert Dream bead set approves of the design and craftsmanship of the piece. Did I mention I was nervous? :o)

February 3, 2010Update...

What am I working on now?
Well, I have a 3" long copper pod that is waiting for me to figure out how to fire it. I was over excited by the pod I found in my back yard and thought ohhhhh copper! And didnt really give thought to firing it. Right now, Art Clay Copper can now be fired with a torch... but only to a certain size. You need to keep it evenly hot to completely sinter and my little micro butane is not going to cut it! (Maybe double handed torches but definitely not one.)

I also have a copper pendant that is actually fired and waiting for finishing! AND I worked more on the "copper canyons" for the wedding presents I'm still working on. BUT this time I'm taking it slow and easy. Hoping to do silver portion of the canyons this weekend.


AND right now, after I post this, I'm headed back to my 'studio' to box up a special package that is shipping to NH. My "Ribbons for Mitzi" were a big hit with her daughter and I received a request for 3 sets. One for Mitzi and one for each daughter. I finished those over the weekend and made the cutest box this evening. Sometimes I think I like making the packaging as much as I do the jewelry!!

I added some Red Picture Jasper beads to the ends of the chains. (OH THE CHAINS... I found the sweetest sterling silver chain made from linked hearts at Michael's this weekend. Nice find for this project!) The thought behind this was two-fold. One I had hopes that it would help keep the necklace from wigling around on them. And two - that the colors would help the ladies know which necklace was theirs. The mixed stone of blue/grey & pink is for Mitzi.

The box was made out of one sheet of gorgeous scrap book paper. One piece for the top and bottom. One piece. How cool! :o) The "Paris Couture" landing where it did was pure LUCK! :o)

After these are packaged and labeled for the post tomorrow, I'm going to work on a piece for my cousin who is also my 'god child'. Can't say what it is, she may be reading! :o)

More this weekend!

January 3, 2010 New Year!

Hmmm...

Sickness is about gone - at least I'm sleeping now. And I'm trying to make up for losing about 12 days at the end of 2009. Not a bad thing in 'life' but when it comes to 12 lost days for "real work" that's bad.

BUT as I attempt to do 'real' work on this gorgeous 46 degree, blue sky, Memphis Sunday I keep thinking about a problem child - no, not one of the boys... but a project I'm working on for loved ones.

Here are the problems...

~ Copper and Silver.
~ Prongs.
~ Shrinkage factor.
~ Possible sintering problems w/ copper.

I think the main part of my problem is jumping for joy that the copper was available for me to use w/ a torch. I thought I had thought out the process of putting this piece together but maybe only on paper.

I started with a polymer clay carving of the heart w/ mountains and created a mold from the 2-part molding material. Originally it was going to be all silver THEN copper clay came along. Ohhh the joy! The mountains in the piece I'm making were red rock and the copper would be stunning!

So I thought use the mountain part of the mold and fill w/ copper. Then add a "tack" with the copper to the back of the mountains and fire.

Once that was done I would make a mold "filler" w/ polymer clay to block the mountain space in the mold. Then fill it with silver to make the heart portion. I was going to make a hole in the silver heart, slice it and form it around the mountains and the "tack" so that when the silver was fired it would shrink down around the 'tack' (maybe I should just call it a post) thus attaching the copper to the silver.

Here's where the problem came in. I skipped steps - I know, I know! Don't skip steps til you know the steps work in the first place!

I was over excited by the copper - and had to make a mountain - it came out awesome - really, really pretty - but I didn't put the 'post/tack' on it. Then of course I had to try the silver... but because I didn't have the post I didn't make the hole. I thought hmmm I'll use bezel wire on the silver and hold the copper to it that way.

Well - that didn't work out - I forgot about the shrinkage factor. The heart shrunk away from the bezel. (I had put it around the base of the heart and it pulled away from the bezel as it fired.)

Then I put the two pieces - copper mountains and silver heart together and POOF the heart shrunk more than the mountain and now it's a whole lotta mountain.

OH and did I mention prongs above - well you won't see them in the silver piece (which actually looked better before I pulled the bezel off, in the pic above it's just setting at the bottom of the heart). In my frustration with the bezel issue I popped the prongs off figured they weren't on there right and ... hmmm that may have been correct. They snapped right off. (I had only done one set of prongs before and they were wires embedded in the piece, these were silver clay and may not have been secured down enough PLUS they were not yet hardened in the tumbler.) ANYWAY - the prongs were going to hold a piece of the red rock I picked up to go on the hearts.

Now, back to the copper canyons - because the mountains were not sitting correctly I tried to bend it down a little with plyers and PPPPPOOOOOOFFFF! It snapped off. Looking at the snapped area I think it didn't sinter 100% through.












But as I'm only partially sure I know that not being sintered correctly means in my terms - it wasn't cooked long enough. So, I'm posting pictures of what I think it's NOT supposed to look like in the hopes that one of my smart Art Clay Friends will tell me yes, indeed it is not sintered correctly and that they are good pictures of what not to do.

What to do?

Unfortunately I have to travel this week so I have a week to think about it and no time to do anything about it til the weekend.

Suggestions on what I did wrong? Or am I going it the right direction and need to follow the steps I originally laid out?

Things that make you go hmmmmmm....

(PS... it's now 37 degrees, overcast and I still have to do 'real' work.)

December 20, 2009 Copper!

In between creating Christmas presents I've been playing with copper since it arrived on 12/04. First attempt (as noted earlier in this blog) was not very successful BUT repeated tries have been a lot better.


I tried to do double sided texture on these earings and the only way I could think to do it was to texture two pieces and then put them together. It worked but to a point. One of the textures I used (lace) was a bit deep and caused the piece to break along the lace lines in 2 places. Luckily I was able to stick them back together.

I did a simple rectangle, cut it in half diagonally and then trimmed a section of the widest part of the triangles off to make the earring two pieces. Once they were dried I torch fired them. I added a little patina to the lace side to bring out the texture.

I used copper wire to make jump rings and 'stitched' the pieces together with the jump rings and then added a 12 mm Leopard Skin Bead and copper ear wire.

Not my usual style - but I'm excited to wear them out! :o)

UPDATED: December 21 - While in Michael's I found "rose gold" earring wires. With my sensitivity to copper I'm excited to put them on my copper earrings. I think the pinky color will bring out the pinky of the copper and should be very helpful in further projects! :o)

December 10, 2009: Like Being Over Caffinated!

This new metal clay addiction of mine is like being over caffinated!! I am working on 7 pieces - 4 of them started tonight - NOT counting my cute little acorn copper test pieces!

Started tonight:
Large Shell Pendant - to hold 2 birthstones w/ deco bail
Small Shell Charm (x2) - to hold 1 birthstone each
Japanese Character Pendant - shaped like dog tag
Silver Heart - will be two of them and will hold copper mountains and natural stones

In clean up:
Puzzle Piece Pendant (x2) - to hold crystalized titanium and 24K gold

Waiting on Tumbling:
Wax Seal Pendant - holds 2 birth'stones'

The shells were created from 2-part mold compound of shells I have from walking the beaches of Cape Cod. The Japanese characters were put together on the computer and then a Photo Polymer Plate (PPP) was created and used as a mold for the silver. The puzzle pieces were created from polymer clay and then molded using 2-part mold compound and the wax pendant was - as indicated in a previous post - created from polymer clay and then molded in 2-part compound mold material.

So much to do, so little time! :o)

December 7, 2009: Copper & Pickle

Sounds like a bad craving by a pregnant woman!

But it's not. Pickle is what you use to clean the black fire scale that is left on copper after you fire it. It eats away the black and leaves you with pretty copper waiting to be shined up like a new penny.

I chose to use Silver Prep. It's natural and not a haz mat accident waiting to happen. And according to some it smells 'less bad' than the regular pickle. Although it smells pretty bad!!!

So, my Silver Prep arrived. I went to Kroger in search of a Lil Dipper crock pot and found instead a 1.5 quart crock pot that was on sale for $10.88 - SCORE! Little larger and less expensive! PLUS the pot comes out and can be cleaned in my dish washer - got to love that!

I came home, read the directions for the 15th time and then let it go. About an hour later I checked and it was pretty hot so I added my copper test pieces - the good and the bad. The whole and the broken. I wanted a good test. Someone had said it may take longer with the non-toxic stuff so I left it in for 2 hours. A bit of over kill but IT WORKED! The pieces came out clean with no scale left at all.

And the mountains - ohhh boy is this piece going to be stunning!!! I'm very, very excited by copper now.

Still no pics - will post later. I'm on a mission to finish silver pieces that will be gifts before I head out on a business trip!

December 5, 2009: Copper Clay - Good & Bad

Never one to let something kick me in the butt - copper clay has almost done this! I experimented... molded some (angel mold, shell, maple leaf, mountains), textured some (about 2 cards thick) and then sliced it into triangles thinking I could make earrings from it, and all the while thinking - it dries out faster than silver.

I fired the pieces:

Angel mold - too big for torch firing so after the piece was fired and dipped into water to stop the fire scale from popping off as it cooled and hitting me in the face - I waited a while and then stress tested it. In otherwords I mauled the piece. The wings snapped off but the head remained solid. I believe it was a sintering issue - I dont think I held it at 'salmon' for 5 full minutes. THAT and the fact that in trying to use less clay (remember by propensity for using too much) I put the clay into the mold in pieces and I personally think some of the breaks were along the lines where the pieces were mushed in.

Shell mold - seems good no breakage

Maple leaf mold - the stem broke off - and the piece was not 100% stable. See final reasoning above in Angel mold - I think it was 'Stupid User Error' in putting the clay into the mold.

Mountain mold - OMG worked great... settle, settle dont get all excited.

Texture sheets - not so good. After checking with my Art Clay Friends on Facebook I discovered that it could be because it was too thin. The break test failed in a major way.

Then I created an "acorn" pretty thick. That sintered completely after 5 mins of heating to 'salmon' stage. And I made a mold of a cool acorn cap and that too sintered well - although later when trying to put a hole through the stem, it broke off. That piece had been re-attached after I dropped it on the floor - dah, hard wood floor not good for pre-fired pieces!

So far, my one wish for copper is that the heart pieces I want to make for my Brother and Sister-in-law work out seems to be good-to-go.

Waiting on Silver Prep to come in so I can "pickle" them and see how they look once I burnish them.

No photos yet.

December 3, 2009: Copper Clay Arrives!!

It's here! My copper clay has arrived.

Now you may be asking - why the sudden excitement in copper clay. Wellll - I've been working on a design of a piece that I want to do for my brother and his new wife.

They were married in Valley of Fire about an hour and a half outside of Las Vegas. The location was stunning! Red rock mountains, red sand, her white dress, his black tux - all stunningly beautiful. While there I took about a million photos and picked up a couple of small stones that were the same material as the mountains. I was thinking they would work as 'gems' in a piece to commemorate the event.

The design started out as a .999 Fine Silver heart with the mountains carved into the front and one of the stones on the silver heart portion. While talking about the design with a Facebook Art Clay friend she mentioned - copper. That got me thinking. Knowing that the new torch-able copper was coming out the next week I started playing with an idea that would have the mountains be COPPER. The red of the copper would make the mountains come alive ontop of the silver heart. In my head and on paper it was going to work.

Then the copper arrived - which brings me to where I am now. Working on the sofa, in front of a roaring fire .. doing - work. SAP VC work. SAP Marketing Master work. And the box with the copper is on the other side of the couch. Watching me. Eyeing me... I feel like I should be in one of those commercials with the money with big eyeballs staring at you. The box with the copper was staring at me - taunting me "ha ha you have to work and can't play with me yet!"

Thankfully tomorrow is a "personal day" I'll get you copper... I'll get you!!!

December 1, 2009: Copper Clay!

At 12:10am I went to ArtClayWorld.com and looked and sure enough, as promised Copper Clay was available for purchase. COPPER CLAY!

Ok - so I was excited because Silver Clay is all I can fire with my little baby kiln or my torch. That means I didnt have to 'wish' for bronze, copper or now steel clay supplies - because I couldnt fire them. HA! THEN they introduce low fire Metal Clay - Copper. Copper clay that can be fired without using a metal can with firing materials and a cover and a huge kiln - AND at $14.99 for 50g it's way more friendly on the wallet than silver ($80.40 for 50g at least today!).

So I ordered some... and ordered the copper "pickle" that I need to clean the fire scale off the copper and copper tongs.

Copper clay - another addition to my metal clay addiction!!