Sunday, March 9, 2008

Darn, darn, drat, drat...again...

No photos for this post. Spent the afternoon trying another nightlight for my friend. It came together really well. Here's what I did different:

Used Fimo soft translucent - I'm going to try to use up my stash of non Kato clay for things that don't involve caning now that Kato has gone softer. Fimo appears to be a little less translucent than the Kato at a setting of 4 on my pasta machine.

Baked it between two tiles in my calibrated oven for 40 minutes - no plaquing. Maybe baking it between the two tiles did that or maybe it was the Fimo which I didn't overly condition. Or maybe a bit of both and the oven and that it's a different time of day and that I was wearing a different shirt... plaquing is so hit or miss with me.

Cut in the antiquing lines before I baked - much easier!

Didn't bend it until after I had done everything that I wanted to it.

But, it was brittle and broke on first bend. It broke in the same place as the other one, along the balloon and down the body. So that screams design flaw to me.

Did I make too thick a slice? I used a 4 setting. Could have gone to a 5 very easily.

Oh, and I baked it between two sheets of white paper, which I also used for burnishing because I love the finish on that. But maybe I leached too much plasticizer out of it but there was no film on the paper...

Who knows.

It's time for a re-design - I'll make it a three panelled flat job the next time. But that means that I've got to come up with some kind of armature to support that. Probably easier to buy a night light that will allow me to do that.

Oh well...

1 comment:

Susan Turney said...

Hi Sandy,
I've been reading about your night-light experiments and wonder if you could bake your clay over a "form" that's rounded. I've been making some vessels and use a metal soap dispenser as the form...I cover it in copier paper then add the clay, bake, and it slips right off. Any rounded glass or metal vase would work and then you could just glue it to the night-light armiture(sp) without having to bend it. I've also used a metal bowl to bake pendants on so they have a curve to them. I don't use the paper if it's something I can just pop off. I think you could find something that already has the shape you want and use that as the form.
If you want to check out my flickr, you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about.
www.flickr.com/photos/pcbysusan
Good luck!
Susan