Kenneth J. Nowicki on wed 5 feb 03
Hi Claybuds...
Just a note on my experiences using E-6000. About 15 years ago I was making
raku jewelry (earrings, pendants, bolo ties, etc.) in a small electric kiln.
Many of the earrings were simply porcelain discs (3/4" dia. - 3/16" thick)
with unglazed backs. I used E-6000 for gluing all my posts, pins, clasps and
other jewelry findings on the backs of my raku pieces. For the most part, it
worked wonderfully... however... on a very small percentage of them... the
earring post would "pop" off the back... an interesting point however... it
never appeared that the glue actually failed, but rather a thin layer of
porcelain would separate from the body of the jewelry. I never really
understood why this happened, but it was enough for me to be concerned about
it since I was selling these things to customers who expected quality. I
always chalked it up to them being "raku", and soft bodied (unvitrified) when
finished. As it turned out, I moved on to making pots again once my new kiln
was built, and haven't made any jewelry since.
From my experience, I'd be wary of using E-6000 on raku or other unvitrified
clay bodies... especially if one was expecting it to support the weight of a
wall hanging or something heavy that could fall and potentially injure an
innocent bystander. (Do I smell a lawsuit? ...yikes) The problems I
experienced using E-6000 didn't happen very often... yet in my book, when
dealing with customers... once is too many. I would still use E-6000 for
certain applications though, under certain circumstances... as I do think it
is a wonderful product. I would expect it would work much better on a
vitrified harder clay body, but some testing should be done.
Regards,
Ken
"Here on Long Island's North Shore... where it's nice to be out from
underneath nature's "cold snap" on the East Coast... songbirds are singing...
and there's only one small patch of ice left from our "White Christmas" on
the street behind our Honda. Looking forward to a trip to my "home town" of
San Diego at next month's NCECA... seeing familiar faces from Clayarters and
meeting new ones too!"
Kenneth J. Nowicki
Port Washington, NY
RakuArtist@aol.com
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