Category: metal clay

Making your own templates: a valknut.

On By Swamp ApeIn metal clayLeave a comment

 

IMG_0547Finished product (the coin is for scale). A valknut, three interlaced triangles, is a symbol of the old Norse gods. You might or might not want to make a valknut. However, the point is not making a valknut. The point is that you can make your own templates of anything you choose. The best news is that they are easy and inexpensive.

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The first step is to choose an image that you want to work with. You might need to resize the image, because metal clay will shrink after firing. Once that is done, tape the image to a stiff piece of cardboard. As you can see, I used a piece of a frozen food container. These tend to be a good stiffness, but are often too slick to work with. To address the slickness, tape a piece of plastic notebook divider to the cardboard atop the image. Plastic notebook dividers are quire cheap, particularly in back-to-school sales, and have a number of uses — they don’t stick to metal clay much, which makes them (with the addition of a tiny amount of lubricant) good working surfaces.

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Quilters use what they call quilting template plastic. It is also good for metal clay. It doesn’t cost very much and you can make many templates from a single sheet of it. Tape a piece of it atop your plastic notebook divider. You will be able to see the image. Trace the image with a sharpie or other similar pen. Remove the quilting template from the image. Cut out your template with a craft knife. Your template isn’t perfect? Here’s the really great news: it doesn’t matter. Rough edges can be fixed in the greenwear stage.

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Now that you have your template, use it like any other. I cut our my valknut, decided I didn’t like the holes, and filled them in. I decided to make the interlaced triangles with syringe. If the syringe isn’t perfect, it isn’t a crisis.  It’s handmade art, so no one expects perfection! Besides, most Swamp Ape products have that ‘archeological dig’ look, and this is no exception.

I put an invisible bail on the back. I cleaned the greenwear using standard methods. I fired in vermiculite, to make sure the bail did not collapse. I used a heavy patina, so the piece would look genuinely old. That was it — finished.

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Again, these techniques work for any design you like. All you need is a piece of quilter’s template plastic (quilting shop), a craft knife (a craft shop), a sharpie, a piece of notebook divider, and some imagination. Do you ever need to buy another template? Maybe not …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If You Don’t Watch Out! Halloween metal clay and sheet metal earrings.

On By Swamp ApeIn metal clayLeave a comment

The earrings pictured here are titled ‘If you Don’t Watch Out’, an obvious reference to James Whitcomb Riley’s poem. They are more than that – they are an example of how you can combine metal clay and traditional metalsmithing. I’m going to tell you how to make your own pair (or, if you prefer, something only vaguely similar – there’s no reason to fixate on jack-o-lanterns). I’m going to assume basic familiarity with silver clay and basic familiarity with metalsmithing, although I will provide some shortcuts.

Requirements:

Small amount of silver clay. Amount depends on size.

Jack-o-lantern pattern (the one I used is QuikArt Pumpkins 2)

Texture sheet of your choice

Patina for silver (I used Blackmax)

Needle tool

Copper sheet

Metal saw or scissors (see below)

Torch (I used a small, cheap butane torch, so you don’t need to be fancy)

Small piece of Plexiglas or extruding tool

Two part epoxy

  • Roll your clay 1.0 mm thick. Then roll it on a texture sheet to a thickness of 0.75 mm, thereby texturing the clay.
  • Use needle tool and template to cut our shape of pumpkin, making a hole in the stem for the ear wires to go through.
  • Use needle tool and template to cut jack-o-lantern face.
  • Dry jack-o-lanterns. Finish the greenware.
  • Make the vines. This is best done by placing a small cylinder of clay on a clean work area and rolling it with a small piece of Plexiglas, holding the glass at an angle. This will make your vine become narrower as it goes. Alternately, you could simply use an extruding tool and have the vine just be a long cylinder. Your choice.
  • Attach vines to pumpkins. I put mine on opposite sides and then curved them at random. You, of course, are free to put them wherever you want.
  • Do any last-minute greenware finishing.
  • Fire, brush, and tumble the earrings. Patina them as you normally would.
  • Cut copper into the shape of the fired earrings. I used 35 gauge copper, which was the advantage of weighing almost nothing and being able to be cut with scissors. If you want to use heavier copper, you might need a metal saw.
  • Heat patina the copper. This is not necessary, but I think it looks nice. Alternately, you might choose to use some chemical means to patina the copper. It’s up to you.
  • Using two part epoxy, attach the copper backings to the earrings, patinaed side toward the face.

There you have it! A pair of earrings that both celebrate the holiday and combine metal clay with metalsmithing. Enjoy!