Clay burning at home: features, temperature and recommendations

Clay is a natural material from which our ancestors made a lot of useful objects for everyday life. Later, and jewelry for women began to be made of this material. The color range of it can be very diverse: red, brown, gray, white, blue, yellow and combined combinations. It depends on its mineral composition. Now, in order to get the clay, you do not need to go to her search in the places of her clusters. It is enough to contact any specialized store or creative laboratory. It is important to note that not any clay can be suitable for its creative embodiment in the subject of art or everyday life.

What can be useful for clay?

Any activity, consisting in the combined interaction of manual labor and imagination, not only captivates the mind of the master, but also helps the young organism to develop fine motor skills of the fingers. And this means that thinking, imagination, sense of color, object geometry and much more - will give the child the opportunity to develop his creative beginning. In addition, it is well known that modeling has a calming effect and allows you to focus on a specific subject - "here and now." And a gift made with your own hands and with a pure heart will not leave anyone indifferent.

Clay burning at home

If you want to give your handicraft product a long life, then roasting is simply necessary. To ensure that the product does not lose shape and does not crack during this process, it is very important to observe the clay burning technology according to its regulations. Due to the effect of high temperature on the clay, the product acquires strength, it "stains". And if after all the required manipulations to make the coating icing, then at all your subject of creativity can also be used in everyday life.

Now the practice of burning clay at home is very popular. There is nothing complicated here, except that one should adhere to safety techniques and have the necessary space, sufficient power for firing.

Basic recommendations for roasting

It starts with the fact that the product must be left in a dark place (or without direct exposure to sunlight) to dry it. Differences in temperature and drafts adversely affect the quality of firing clay - it should be taken into account. The smaller the thickness of the walls of the product, the faster it dries and less time is required to get rid of unnecessary moisture, and vice versa. This applies to the firing time, the larger and thicker the object, the more time it takes to bake, the range varies from 4 to 12 hours. Averaged, it happens about 6 hours, but it's all individually.

When stacking your work, you should follow their arrangement according to the "pyramid scheme": at the bottom should be the largest size of objects, then higher with a gradual decrease. Important weight is: the heaviest products should be from below. At this stage, you can not be afraid that they can stick together to each other - boldly lay out on each other. Close the oven.

The burning temperature of clay at its maximum reaches 900 degrees. But the heating should go with a gradual increase. If you have a professional oven with temperature control, then the first heating should be set at 150-200 degrees. This temperature will last no more than 2 hours. Then we add 200 more degrees and the rest 2 hours we keep clay objects in the furnace. And so repeat until until we reach the value of 900 degrees, and we maintain some more time.

How to burn clay

As a rule, at home, the clay is fired in a homemade oven. In this case, the temperature regime must be monitored on an ongoing basis. It will look like this:

1. We start from the first position of the switch, hold for 5 minutes and turn it off.
2. After 5 minutes, turn on, leave for 10 minutes clay to bake and turn off.
3. After 15 minutes, turn on, again hold for 10 minutes and turn off.
4. At this stage, we turn on the stove, and we keep firing the clay until the products turn red.
5. Here we switch the switch to the second position and follow the same pattern: 5-5 min, 10-10 min, 15-10 min stand. And here it is not necessary to turn off the stove, but only to go down from 2 positions to 1 and back.
6. Position 3 is applicable in the event that the capacity of the furnace is not sufficient.

On average, up to 6 hours goes to the entire process of burning clay. Determine "readiness" is possible by glowing the walls inside the furnace. As soon as the light turns to light yellow, turn off the oven.

Do not open the door immediately, leave the products to cool in the oven for a long time, for example, for the whole night. This will allow to cool evenly after firing. Then you can cover them with glaze and allow to dry, so your creation will last you much longer.

Clay crafting

If you want to use clay without roasting, then you need to choose it with polymer additives.

Before starting modeling, the polymer clay needs to be kneaded with good hands, knocked with the palms. From these manipulations, extra air will leave the material. This is necessary in the event that you still decide to roast (but not necessarily). To shape the product more conveniently, working with two hands, starting with larger objects and ending with the smallest ones. To help you come the stack, this is a tool for modeling. When the work is completed, wipe the product with a damp sponge or brush.

How to sculpt

Clay, though a plastic material, but more durable than plasticine. Therefore, there are several important recommendations for handling it during molding:

• Clay should always be moist, do not let it dry.
• When cracks appear, smooth them immediately with water or a water-clay mass.
• Work on modeling begins with large objects, smoothly turning to smaller ones.
• There is no need to put foreign products into the clay, it is better to make separate depressions in the product for this purpose.

When everything is done, you need to leave your figure for a couple of days to dry. Although clay for molding without roasting looks great, you can additionally bake it in an oven or microwave oven, but this is according to your desire. Glue PVA at the final stage can serve as glaze for the product.

Polymer clay as a source of inspiration

When using polymer clay, roasting is not an obligatory process, but this creates an amazing realistic effect of the object. It looks very impressive.

Firing of polymer clay can be carried out in an oven with a thermoregulator and on a homemade oven. But the most convenient way is aerogril. When creating flowers, aerogrill will not work, as they will become thin. They need a temperature in the range of 110 to 130 degrees.

And this means that none of the proposed methods work. Therefore, firing clay for flowers is best done in a glass bowl.

We bake flowers from polymer clay

Buds of flowers are placed on toothpicks, which are stuck in any soft object, for example, in foil. We put all this in a glass container with a lid, and we send it to a well-heated oven. On average, about 2-2.5 minutes will be required for the product to be ready. But pay attention to the color they have not changed and did not become thin petals. If this happens, you have overexposed the product. The exact time of aging can be determined experimentally, depending on the operating mode of your oven and the volume of the product.

When firing polymer clay in the oven it is important to take into account the temperature of the glassware - it should not be cold, it can be heated directly in the oven during its heating.