33/52 Bird a week challenge - You crack me up!

My bird this week wasn't exactly successful, but he is still a different bird that I made as part of the challenge. The challenge doesn't have to be all successful birds!  Poor No. 33!  Here is "you crack me up" bird.  Yes, he has big cracks in him!!!

I made him as one of my trials with the new pearl grey steel XT clay from Hadar Jacobson.  My other blog posts this week are all about my tests with this new clay.

By the look of the cracks, my suspicion is that he wasn't totally dry inside before I fired him.  He'd been drying for quite a while on a coffee warmer and felt completely dry and sanded well, but this was the first steel piece that I had used the coffee warmer for, so maybe the outside was totally dry but the inside wasn't?? I did however also fire this bird using a different container than my first couple of pieces, but I don't think it's that.  The only way I'll tell is if I do some more trials....So I guess I will.

The other problem with this birdie is that I think he looks like a fish!!!  OK, so he has a beak ...but I still think there is something fishy about him! Don't you?  Maybe he is a parrot fish???

I guess he won't be winning any big prizes in my 52 birds that I do this year, one each week - but he is one that I will learn from!

Follow the links to see the other birds that people are making this week:

Hadar's Pearl Grey Steel XT Clay - Part II

Continuing my trials with Hadar's Pearl Grey Steel XT metal clay, here is the fired ring that I mentioned in yesterday's post:

The firing all went well and I love the color of it. It's tough. I've been wearing it for a couple of days now, and really like it next to the white and yellow gold ring that I have.


The sanding was easy - like sanding the silver clays. Some of the other base metal clays are much more difficult to sand and need rougher sand paper to start, but this was fine. I sanded it just like the silver clay, finishing with the fiber wheel for a matt finish.

Shrinkage was interesting.  The ring size  - ie inner circle - seemed to shrink hardly at all - maybe less than half a size but the thickness of the band did shrink quite a bit.  It's standing up to hard wear so I'm confident that sintering was successful. 

I like it. I consider my first test  a success.  I've now also finished the second firing of my next two samples so I'll tell you more about them later.

Have you given this steel clay a try yet? What are your experiences? I'd love to hear from you.