Test Fire - Cone 10 Pendants

My pendants just came out of the kiln for my first pendant test firing of Cone 10. The pendants made it through and the glazes didn't run on the shelf. Some of the glazes I don't care for on sculptural or functional ware, look great on pendants. For instance, the Tom Coleman glaze, green to black satin matt looks great on a pendant (lower left in above photo), but looked washed out on a vase I glazed recently.

Feeling the weight of the pendants, I actually think I could make them a little heavier. I also think I could have put a bit more glaze on the pendants, but I didn't want the glaze to run on the kiln shelf. A drawback to Cone 10 pendants is I only glaze the front of the pendant because the nichrome wire won't hold up through Cone 10 temperature of 2350 or sometimes even higher.


The clay I am using, Rod's Mix from Laguna, says it shrinks an average of 14 percent with a plus or minus 2 percent possible. Up to this point for the functional ware I have been making, shrinkage hasn't mattered much to me, but for pendants it makes a difference on how the pendant hangs in a piece of jewelry. I will have to make a few more test pendants and measure them in length, width and depth at the wet stage, the leather hard stage, after the bisque and then after the glaze firing. Well, I am back to working with the clay again.