Fun with Metal Clay-Finishing up the firing

Wow...so it took two hours to fire the clay in the kiln and another three for the whole thing to cool down enough to take the firing container out and remove the copper pieces.

I could hear the carbon pieces hopping around in the container, they were still so hot.

The kiln was a bit of a mess inside, as some of the carbon escaped from the container, which is probably why the copper pieces are a bit dark. The high heat and air would oxidize the metal...No problem though, a little polishing will do wonders (plus antiqued metal is all the rage these days!)

Some of the larger pieces were still a bit hot when I took them out of the firing container, so I quenched them in a bowl of room temperature water, to finish the cooling process.

It was pretty late by the end of all this, so i just cleaned up my work room and put the copper pieces aside until monday.