“Mama said there’d be days like this…”
It was just one of those frustrating days in the studio. Several of the pieces of copper clay I was finishing (sanding), before firing, broke when I was almost done…. AFTER I’d put the time into sanding down the inlayed copper or brass clay. It may have been a “dumb day” but I learned something from it. I am rolling the copper and bronze clay too thin. This happens the most with pieces I want to inlay.
After all the time spent with silver PMC+, I have learned to make pieces fairly thin to cut down on the cost of material. I’ve gotten pretty good at making beads that are 2 cards thick, still having enough thickness to prefinish the piece, with those spongy 3M sanding pads, before firing. This ends up being too thin, for me, with copper or bronze clay.
I’ve rolled out copper and bronze clay to 4 cards thick, then stamped or pressed stuff into it to make a depression for clay inlay. The depression ends up being only about 2 cards thick. It does not take the stress of my handling it, before it is fired. The pieces keep breaking before I get to fire them. This happens more with flat pieces than hollow forms.
After breakage, I fire the pieces anyway, so they can used as test pieces. I have so much to learn about this base metal clay!
Barbara S Fernald Jewelry 