Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Happy Accident

My first try w/ Fast fire Bronzclay seems to be a success. To be completely honest, this is my second firing of this load since I accidentally used the acid-washed carbon rather than the coconut shell. Also bumping up the firing temp to 1545 rather than 1525 seemed to help, too.
The colors were quite a surprise! I figured they would be dull and maybe slightly gold-toned. The first ones out of the firing pan (the 8 bead caps near the 5 o'clock position) were not too colorful, but still have some interesting patterns on them. It wasn't until I swirled my stainless steel hemostat around in the medium trying to fish some out -with my respirator on- that I noticed a flash of color change. The bright orange was a complete shock since I've never gotten such vivid color from the coconut shell carbon. Another thing that seemed to help was almost fishing it out and then re-submerging it in the carbon. That's how I got some of the raku looking pieces. The far left are the ones that were on the very bottom and so they stayed in the longest. In case anyone is interested- I fired at full ramp to 1545* holding for two hours. I had my pan up on kiln posts, and the lid was not fully covering the container. After it was done firing, I removed the kiln lid around 1300* and left the pan- still covered w/ the lid- in the kiln until the temp read ~230-250. Can't remember the exact number now, should've written it down. After removing it carefully from the kiln, I searched for my hemostats and started digging for the bead caps soon after. Et voilà!

9 comments:

Jane Perala said...

WOW - those are fantastic! I love all the colour you got from them. One of these days I will have to try some bronzclay.

Courtney Breul said...

They are wonderful! Congrats.

Aquariart said...

Love your surprise colors!! Very nice beads and caps.

Libby Leuchtman said...

Ohhh my. If you don't mind I think I am going to try this. So beautiful.

Aja Vaz said...

Thanks, ladies!
Libby, you're more than welcome to try- let me know if it works for you :)
I'm wondering if the success in the colors was due to accidentally firing it in the acid-washed first then the coconut shell?
My third load is going to answer that question since I'm firing it in the acid-washed right now and then plan to fire it in the coconut later tonight or tomorrow.
The second load wasn't nearly as colorful being fired in just the coconut shell- twice, since the first time didn't properly sinter all the pieces.
I'll share my findings in the next day or so :)

wulittlepun said...

hi,nice to see u
i'm Dennis,
I come from Taiwan.
i saw your work it's really pretty~
May I ask you some of the questions about the Enamel?
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/wulittle-pun/
this is my blog~
there're some of my works there~
i want to ask u about how to wet-packed the enamel on the ball

nestthank you so much~

wulittlepun said...
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wulittlepun said...
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wulittlepun said...
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