High fire wire in clay sculptures

[Hubert Kerstens]

Hello, I recently heard about high fire wire as a means to ad loops to clay objects in order to hang them etc. Can I also use high fire wire inside clay  sculptures fired at around 1050C ? 

[Pyewackette]

Now that you mention it, I wonder about this as well.  A lot of figures I've been interested in (trying to) sculpt require some sort of armature, or wire as part of the sculpture itself (like say bird legs).  I also wonder if this may be part of the reason some ceramic sculptures I've had in the past were done in low fire earthenware ...

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I don’t know how much Kanthal wire will add structural integrity to a fired sculpture, but if it’s a matter of building a figure around an armature, as long as the finished piece will support itself you should be ok to just leave it in place. If you want a piece such as a bird to stand on wire feet, you’d be better off adding the wire after the firing as a cold process, as it may get brittle after firing to those temps.

Kanthal isn’t the first wire choice I’d use for large sculptures though. 1 lb of Kanthal runs about $70 CDN.

Most figurative sculptors that I’ve seen use additive methods and wire armatures will cut the sculptures apart and remove the armature, hollow out some of the excess clay and put it back together.