Art Clay Copper!

Well, there’s nothing like volunteering to do a demo for the San Francisco Bay Area Metal Clay Guild to get one going! Kathleen Gordon and I did a demo last year on bronze clay. It went rather well, so we decided we would do something together again this year. We couldn’t decide what to do. We played with resins but then Pat Evans did a great demo on resins a couple of months ago so we decided to demo the new Art Clay Copper, which can be torch fired. We roped Sherry Cordova into playing with us. We got together at Sherry’s house and broke open our first package of clay. The clay comes in 50 gram packages and the information pamphlet that came from Art Clay World said that any clay that was opened had to be used right away or sealed in a vacuum sealed package.   We made a few simple pieces like some end caps and charms, basically using up our 50 grams. We decided to try firing them on an open shelf in the kiln. The kiln was preheated to 1780°. The pieces to be fired were placed on a shelf covered with a sheet of kiln paper to prevent sticking. The pieces were fired for 30 minutes, then removed and dropped into water. This removed most of the oxides. It took some time in the pickle to remove most of the oxides that were left.  Sherry took some pictures and you can see them on her blog.

I then did some expirimenting on my own. I wanted to torch fire the clay to see how that worked and also try some of the different finishing techniques.

Torch firing for 7 minutes.

A lot of copper is lost during the firing process.

The torch firing process is fun. It’s quick and you have immediate results.

Pam East wrote about working with the Art Clay Copper so that it can be enameled. I decided to try that process and maybe try some enameling. I punched out a bunch of textured discs and dried them on a large marble to give them a domed shape. I thought that would help if  I enameled them. I followed Pam’s instructions for firing on an open  self.

Sample were placed face down on a piece of thin fire shelf paper.

Shelf placed into preheated kiln for 30 minutes.

Pam’s instructions say to put the pieces on kiln paper with the front facing down. Apparently less copper will oxidize on the side facing the shelf. I preheated the kiln to 1780° and placed the shelf in the hot kiln. I set a timer for 30 minutes. When I pulled the shelf out of the kiln, I used gloves and long tongs to drop the hot pieces into a container of water. I then pickled the pieces for around an hour. After removing the pieces from the pickle I simmered them in water with baking soda added. I then tumbled for around 3 hours.

Again, lots of flaked copper.

These pieces were tumbled for 3-4 hours.

Kathleen, Sherry and I got together one more time before we were ready to present. Our demo would include a “hands on” portion, so we decided to add a sample of Hadar Jacobson’s Quick Fire Copper Clay. This clay comes in a powder form which must be mixed before using. We also tried another experiment with the copper clay. I had read Hadar’s blog post about creating an alloy of copper and silver by combining PMC Plus and her own brand of Quick Fire Copper Clay and I read the March 2010 article about Shibuichi that she cited in her post. I also wondered about combining the clays to create an alloy but she had actually tried it. Her result were beautiful, especially the patinas that she was able to achieve. I’ll post again soon with some of the results of our Shibuichi experiments.

The guild meeting went well. Everyone was able to try both the Art Clay Copper and Hadar’s Quick Fire Copper clays. The samples were torch fired, quenched and brushed with brass brushes. Everyone left with sample pieces and the experience of torch firing the clay.