Firing Precious Metal Clay With a Hand Torch
Precious metal claymakes it simple for you, the home jewelry crafter, to make your own handmade beads, pendants and charms from honest to goodness real precious metals like gold and silver.
Here’s how it works. First you form the pieces, let them dry, then finally use a firing method to burn off the organic binder. Fine metal particles are suspended in an organic binder that can be burnt off leaving the metal fused into the form you shape it.
You can use umpteen different methods to texture, shape, and mold the clay into marvellous and complex shapes, but these are beyond the scope of this article!
Recommended Firing Methods
These are the 3 main methods for firing metal clay. Using a torch, a kiln, or with a Hot Pot (or similar gas/metal screen setup). In this post, we’ll be talking only about using a hand torch.
Using A Torch To Fire Your Clay
Only torch smaller pieces. For best results, make sure your piece is fairly even in thickness and fairly simple. Complex and intricate pieces are more likely to fare better in a kiln.
Here’s how to torch fire. Do not forget toput your clay on a a fire proof and heat retardant like a soldering pad or a fire brick with a piece of aluminum sheet underneath. You’ll want a well ventilated area. Using your butane torch (I use a Blazer torch), aim your flame on the dried precious metal clay piece. At first you’ll see a small amount of smoke as the binder burns off. Then you just need to get your piece to turn a nice pinky orange colour (you can see it quite clearly as long as your light isn’t too bright) Move the torch away a bit and then back again if the glow fades. Just don’t go really close with the torch once you have got up to temperature or you will melt the detail on your work.
A Precious Clay Torching Video:
Videos always help explain this torch technique:
Looking for precious metal clay retailers? Resource girl to the rescue! Take a look at my precious metal clay pages and posts at http://shop.how-to-make-jewelry.com/metal-clay-supplies/ to find metal clay supplies and links for various suppliers and stockists worldwide.
