First Show of 2015 (and first blog of the year too)

Well I've been away for a long time but in my defense, I've been busy creating new designs and exploring the possibility of wholesaling.  If you haven't seen my new pieces, you need to stop into Jansjems.

But I digress.  I've been to Upstate NY and it was definitely worth the trip.

Last weekend I participated in the 44th Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council June Art Festival in Glens Falls, NY.  Having been encouraged to get out of Western Mass. and head for NY state I chose this show to give it a try.  And now I see how the big shows do it.

LARAC is a well oiled machine, an organization with a gift shop right on the park where the show took place.  Their advertising includes a 23 page magazine insert into the local papers and available for each vendor and  all 10-20,000 customers.  It includes a show map, info on all the vendors and their booth location, and lots of paid advertising.

I drove the 2 1/2 hours by myself and was fortunate to be placed between 2 men who have been doing this show for years.  Ralph helped me get my tent up on Friday and John was a wealth of information about this show and others.

Saturday was packed and even tho the show doesn't open until 10 am, I had customers and made sales starting at 9am.  These are the people who come to buy.  As one vendor put it, "The husbands are home mowing the lawn so the wives come to shop."  While the steampunk jewelry still brings people into the tent, most of my sales were bronze and silver pieces that day.  The weather was great and the food vendors were across the road from my group of booths, so traffic and sales were steady all day.

Sunday, unfortunately, was typical of many shows I did last year.  It's the day that the strollers attend bringing dogs and children and elderly relatives.  Sales didn't even start until after lunch so I was a bit worried.  But I did end up selling about half the amount of Saturday, mostly steampunk designs, so worthwhile in the end.

Glens Falls is a larger city than I anticipated and there are lots of cute little shops and gift stores there that I'm disappointed I didn't have time to explore.  The list of restaurants seems endless and there is lots to do in the area so it's a great place to vacation.

All in all, it was a mostly positive experience.  Had it not been for the person who stole one of my silver rings, it would have been completely positive.  Turns out that a couple of other jewelers had rings stolen as well so someone was working the show.  I was later told that this bad element has been in attendance for the last couple of years.  Keep that in mind if you do any shows in that area.

Adventures in Bronzclay

I've been working on a custom order for the past week.  The order is for a bronze pendant which came out beautifully and only took 1 day to create.  But I've spent the last 5 days trying to find the proper firing schedule for it.

I made a real rookie error with this order--I created the piece from a product I've never used before.  I've tried and successfully created jewelry from a couple of different bronze clay products.  These were powders that you have to add water to.  Their firing schedules are pretty easy and one is even comparatively short. But I didn't like the final color of one and the other shrank way too much.  But an instructor suggested I try Bronzclay.  It comes already in clay form.  As I was almost out of bronze clay, I ordered 200 grams.

My friend was right.  It's not grainy like one of the powdered products, stays moist longer, and reconstitutes easily.  So right out of the package, after working it a little, I created my custom order.

I also created a couple of test strips and fired them together according to instructions in the package.  The thinner (2mm) strip came out fully sintered but with pinholes.  I'm no expert but I think that means it was over-fired.  The thicker textured strip (3mm) snapped in half when I tried to bend it and the black bonding material was exposed.  What does it mean when the binder burns off on 1 piece but not the other?

I adjusted the schedule a bit and tried again to fire a pair of earrings.  This time the binder didn't burn out on either piece.

What did we do before we had Google and all the information people throw up on the Web?  In my search for sintering problems and firing schedules for Bronzclay I found that I was not alone with my problem. There were no less than 6 different firing schedules put up by metal clay experts that work for them.  Some used a single firing method buried in carbon, some used a 2 step process in carbon, some fired initially on an open shelf then used a 2 step buried-in-carbon schedule.  Others followed the open shelf with a 1 step schedule.  Some schedules were for specific style kilns.  All are very long schedules--easily 9 hours.

After 4 days of trials, the open shelf initial firing to burn out the binder did the trick but the follow up firing caused my next pair of earrings to become brittle and break.  But using a 2-step ramp up and dropping the final temperature some in the second firing seemed to do the trick, at least for the small flower pendant I made.

How you dry the clay may contribute to the problem. It shouldn't be put on a coffee warmer but instead needs to air dry. I found articles suggesting freezing the clay to dry it.

I'm not sure that makes any difference but before I put my custom pendant into the kiln I decided to try a few more pieces to see if I get the same result.  These were also left in the freezer for awhile before firing though I'm not sure why I did that.  They had air dried for a couple days already.

After the successful firing of a few more pieces....

I fired the custom piece.   Voila!!

This bronze product polishes up nicely too.

For those who might be interested, and to add yet another firing schedule to the internet, I achieved this success by placing pieces on an open shelf and a slow ramp of 250°F to 560° F , hold 30 min and cool down.  Then burying pieces in coconut carbon, full ramp to 800°F or 900° F, no hold and ramping at 250°
to 1468°F, hold for 2 hours and cool.  Yes, it's a full day in the kiln.