Fresh out of metal clay?

Ruh roh! I ordered more, but it won’t be here for a few days!

Time to re-hydrate my unfired scraps, so I can keep making  silver beads to get ready for an upcoming trunk show. Below, one of my favorite tools. The coffee grinder. All sizes and shapes of unfired PMC mistakes go in here. Also all of the PMC dust I’ve saved from sanding.

Ta da! Fluffy and finely ground!

Add distilled water with a sprayer and stir until the clay pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Don’t add too much water or the clay will get too sticky to work with.

This part I added to my re-hydration routine after learning how to mix bronze and copper clay powder from Hadar Jacobson’s blog. Oil the inside of a notebook cover and roll the clay out flat. Keep doing this to condition it.

(Kind of a dorky photo…)

Look how much clay I mixed up compared to 45g of PMC+.

This really works for me in a pinch. The  fired clay is more porous than clay fresh out of the package. If I am making pieces I need to solder after firing, I prefer fresh clay. But this reconstituted version works well for beads with a lot of rough texture, or pieces on which I will apply bits of PMC sheet. Below are the pre-fired pieces I was able to make from that big lump of re-hydrated clay scraps. (Thanks coffee grinder from Rite Aid! You were a bargain for $15!)