BronzClay is easy to work with: you can shape it in minutes, dry it quickly with a hair drier, fire it in your kiln, and polish it with toothpaste. You start with soft clay and end up with real solid bronze: ready to wear, give, or sell.

You can design and make your own unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings, charms, keepsakes, rings, brooches, anklets, ornaments, and seasonal decorations.

You can add bronze clasps to clothes, overlays to gift cards, motifs to handbags, highlights to wood, ceramics, glass, and shells, and produce complex shapes and patterns from moulds.

BronzClay is a composite clay-like material, made from fine bronze powder and a harmless organic binder. As it's fired, the binder vapourises and the metal powder sinters, leaving solid bronze: 89% copper and 11% tin. During firing, small amounts of non-toxic carbon dioxide and water vapour are released: so it's safe to use at home.

For over 5500 years, bronze has been used for containers, tools, decorations, and jewellery, so BronzClay is particularly suited to Celtic and Roman designs, primitive styles, and large or durable pieces. For example, a bronze clay bangle would be considerably stronger than a silver clay bangle.

The firing temperature and time are important: metal clay has to sinter, not melt. There's a difference between sintering and melting. During sintering, metal powders bond to produce solid metal, but don't melt. During melting, metals become liquid and lose their original shape.

BronzClay is fired in a special way: your work needs to be firmly embedded in activated charcoal granules in a stainless steel container and covered with a lid. Coconut-based charcoal produces a natural bronze colour whereas coal-based charcoal produces a colourful range of patinas.

Firing bronze clay is a two-part process: a low heat segment to prepare the kiln's atmosphhere followed by a high heat segment to sinter the alloy.

To accommodate the stainless steel container, and a selection of work, the kiln needs to be about 300mm deep. The Xpress E-12A, made for Cherry Heaven, is a true mixed-media kiln suitable for most materials and processes. It's the recommended kiln for BronzClay as it's suited to continual high temperatures and large enough to contain the necessary charcoal-filled container. To learn more, use the Xpress link below the menu bar near the top of the page.

To learn more about larger kilns, such as the Paragon Fusion, GL, and Pearl glass kilns, the KM knife-making kilns, and the Dragon, Iguana, Janus, Ovation, Viking, and Vulcan ceramics kilns, transfer to Paragon Kilns, using the Paragon Kilns link above the menu bar near the top of the page.