Keramiek Noortje Meijerink - Metal Clay: Gold-, Zilver-, Bronze-, Copperclay


		Metalclay: Gold-, Silver-, Bronze- en Copperklay The priciples of Metal Clay Metal clay is made by mixing powdered particles of metal with a binder and pure water, creating a moldable substance. This material can be sculpted, shaped and rolled with ease. You can even throw it on a potters wheel. Once dry it can stay soft or flexible making carving easy. Grinding and polishing is less hard when done on the dried material than after baking. When this 'clay' is baked in an oven, the binder burns away and the particles sinter together to form a solid metal. This metal can be processed in lots of different ways: polishing, colloring, enameling (except bronzclay), drilling, sawing, grinding, patinating, soldering, etc. Metal Clay is now so good that it can challenge the way metals are traditionally processed, using a lot of new techniques and combinations. Why BRONZclay™ en COPPRclay™ The inventor is Bill Struve, a classical chemist and engineer, who wanted to create a cheap and easy to process Metal Clay for his wife, so that she could make durable and wearable jewelery. His goal was to make a material that is safe and easy to mould without special tools. After countless hours of experimenting, this finally resulted in BRONZclay. Bill has got many titles, but the tile "P.M.H" (Philisofer, Maker, Helper) that he gave himself is the most accurate. Bill can hold fantastic speeches about his invention of BRONZclay. If you want to hear this for your self, you should come to the PMC Conference from the 6th till the 8th of August in Bristol, UK. A few tips for working with BRONZclay™: » Store the BRONZclay, tightly sealed in cling foil, in a plastic bag or container to prevent the material from drying out. » Store BRONZclay in the refrigerator, also between processing steps. » Grease your hands and tools with olive oil before working with BRONZclay. » BRONZclay dries out rather quickly, so keep a spray or pensil with distilled water at hand. » Always cover pieces of BRONZclay you're not working with, with cling foil. » After prolonged exposure to air, a black layer forms at the surface of the clay. Scrape this black layer off till the normal looking color reappears. An extensive manual can be downloaded here. A few tips for working with COPPRclay™: » Don't use the same tools for different metal clays. Stray bits of silver can disrupt the sintering of bronze or copper, or the other way round. » Always fire copper clay in an rust-free metal pan, below a layer of active coal. » Copper clay should be fired to 900°C and then being held at that temperature for 3 hours. » Copper clay can only be fired under active coal made from coconut. » Processing, rolling, texturing, ect, is the same as with bronze clay. Interested?... My workshops challange you to discover Metal Clay in all it's forms. And to discover the strength of the material, namely the numerous possible combinations with other materials and disciplines. Workshops Metalclay My showcase Or see the exhibition and Metal Clay products page for more details.