JohnnyK Posted November 22, 2022 Report Share Posted November 22, 2022 After my first failed attempt at building my own stands for firing jewelry, I've succeeded in fabricating new stands which held up to ^6 firing! The first time around, I made the stands with ^5 B-Mix and bisque fired them to ^04. They seemed solid enough, but when I fired the assembled stands, the weight of the jewelry caused the stands to sag, which, in turn, caused most of the jewelry pieces to run together and touch its neighbor. The melting glaze joined the pieces permanently. In the cases where the pieces were not co-joined, they were stuck to the stainless steel wire I used to string them because I drilled the mounting holes just big enough for the wire to fit AND I didn't clean the holes of glaze, thus fusing the pieces to the wire. This time around, I added a strut to the B-Mix w/grog ^5 stands and fired them to ^6. I drilled the jewelry holes bigger and cleaned the holes of glaze. The stands held up to the firing and I had only 2 pieces stick to the wire but was able to break them loose without breaking the pieces. The photos show the first failed attempt, the second successful attempt, the layout of the stands, the assembled stands, and a selection of copper-toned pieces that I thought came out looking pretty darned good! (The penny is to show proportion.) In a number of the pieces, I was going for a raw, organic look with the rough edges which I think will look great as part of a necklace. shawnhar, Chilly, CeramicHugs and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted November 22, 2022 Report Share Posted November 22, 2022 Congrats! It would be worth getting a cone 10 to build them from, as it will be less likely to bend at cone 6. You may be able to add more wires then. CeramicHugs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyK Posted November 22, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2022 3 minutes ago, neilestrick said: Congrats! It would be worth getting a cone 10 to build them from, as it will be less likely to bend at cone 6. You may be able to add more wires then. Thanks for the input, Neil...I'm guessing that you're talking about ^10 clay which I do have in stock. I'd just be firing them to ^6 to stiffen them up. The ones I made are setup for 4 wires, I just didn't want to overload them on this first go around. The first failure was due to their being just bisque fired before I ran the jewelry glaze firing... CeramicHugs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rae Reich Posted November 23, 2022 Report Share Posted November 23, 2022 Nice construction! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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