Getting the sandpaper out

Yesterday I decided to do a job I have been putting off for some time. I had bought some wet/dry sandpaper some time ago, but never got around to using it. The pack included coarse, medium and fine papers. I have read in several books that once a piece of clay has been baked it can be sanded and buffed to make it nice and shiny. The process seems to be to start with the coarse paper and then work through to the fine.

The sun was shining outside and so I sat on my patio and decided to try this for the first time. I chose the transparent heart that I had baked previously. The first sandpaper I used was the coarse type. Unsurprisingly it made scratches on the surface, and my first thought was I had messed the whole thing up. It did show however that it is quite easy to reduce any variations in size with the coarse paper, as it wears down the clay quite quickly.

In an attempt to remove the scratches, I took the fine paper and sanded with that and found that this in fact did smooth the surface down and removed most of the coarse scratches. Finally I buffed the heart with a bit of cloth.

I can't say that at the end the piece looked particularly different, so I am still not sure how successful this process was. I found sanding such a small object quite difficult and perhaps there is an easier way to do this that I am yet to discover. The next experiment I want to try will be to use the glaze I had bought a few months ago and see what effect that has on my heart pendant.