BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Jewelry Making PMC / Real Silver Clay

I have an interest in getting PMC sheets of silver clay and making silver origami cranes out of them for jewelry. Has anyone tried folding PMC sheets? How well does it work? Also, what kiln would you recommend?

I used PMC sheet during my Rio certification. It's very piable. You want to use water at a minimum or it will disslove. It's very flexible and easy to use as long as your hands are dry. I used it for woven earrings with PMC original and cut shapes with punches to decorate a bead... You can cut it with scissors... very nice with the decorative scissors... I would reccomend a kiln with that item. Sharon

That is good to know about the scissors - thanks!!

I think a kiln is required - that you can't bake it in an oven. Do you have a kiln you use, that you would recommend? I want something for my home that's small but that works well.

PMC needs either a kiln or some things can be "fired" with a torch---a butane torch. You can do small clay items with the torch, and I am not SURE about the paper, but I suspect it needs a kiln---the torch might actually heat it too quick and it will burn/melt instead of firing correctly. HOWEVER, to be sure you might want to check pmcconnection.com or wholelottawhimsey.com both sites have a lot of instructions, as does riogrande.com.
Teri
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Right I think a torch would be dangerous for my thin-paper types of creations. So I really think I need a kiln. It sounds like we don't have a lot of kiln users in the forum so I will try to choose one based on reviews I find, and then I'll report back on how it goes!

I am not sure how well it will work for pmc paper, but I have a microwave kiln for jewelry making (pmc and dichro/warm glass) and I love it. It takes a bit of tweaking to get your timing just right, but for small projects it is great. If your origami birds are small enough it may work great for you.

Hi
I have an 'ultra lite beehive kiln' which is small and easy to pack away and use. It's about the size of a large cereal bowl and the firing space is about the size of a sugar bowl - so only suitable for small items. It can be purchased as it is or with some additions - like a 'lid' which can be used for keum bo on silver clay, also a temperature control is available.

I thought this was better to start me off with than the expense of a 'proper' kiln, allowing me to experiment with silver clay without the huge outlay. I never liked using the torch on clay as I didn't feel like I got it fired evenly enough.
Finding a supplier should be quite easy - just put 'beehive kiln' into your search engine. If you have any probs locating one, post a message and I'll try to find out where I got my temp control from.
It should be easier to get hold of in the USA than it was over here - I got the kiln in the UK and the control from US.

Let us know how you get on with your 'paper folding' - it sounds like fun!

Everything I've read about PMC sheet clay is that it is so thin that it really needs a kiln to work properly. So I got a kiln and I have it running for the first time ever right now!

I will let you guys know how it goes! I have the fire extinguisher handy and will be checking on it every 15 minutes while I do my work.