BRONZclay Success!

Thanks to some great advice from Bill Struve and several other members of our metal clay community, I have successfully fired BRONZclay!  My  strategy was to focus on the two most likely problems, which were temperature and carbon.  I’ve suspected that my kiln might run a bit hot, so I backed off to 1500 for the hold temp.  I also switched to the coconut carbon that I’ve used to successfully fire COPPRclay.  These three test pieces are fully sintered with no blisters and not even the tiniest of cracks.  Wahoo!

My next test will be fired in a new batch of coal carbon, which should arrive later this week.  I really want to fire in coal carbon to get those amazing colors right out of the kiln.  I’m learning that the coal carbon is an inconsistent firing media.  From what I’m told, you might buy a batch from a source today that works perfectly, and buy another batch next month that doesn’t work.  I don’t think it reflects on the vendor when you get a bad batch.  It seems to be just the luck of the draw.

Of course, I’m just trying to piece together all of the information that’s flowing in.  I’ll post again after the next test.  Many thanks to you all!