Bronzclay dried and kiln ready

I realized I know nothing about Bronze - except that it is a metal and it often looks old. In deciding to learn a little more, so I looked on the History for Kids website. I learned that it is actually a combination of two metals - copper and tin. Copper must lend to it's beautiful color and the tin adds strength. Copper by itself is very soft, and tin by itself is brittle.

It's very cool that it is so easy to make bronze look old because it actually dates back to 4000 bc and actually has an 'age' named after it. With age, it attains the lovely 'green' patina. I love looking at the bronze artifacts in museums. I read somewhere, too, that it comes out of the kiln with some unusual colors as well, and that remains to be seen!

The first photo shows what the bronzclay looks like after it is dried, but not yet fired. The second show it ready for the kiln. It is being fired in a stainless container, covered with coconut shell media.