Shrinkage ruler

[lou83]

<font color='#000080'>Hi guys,
brand new member to the forum & Art clay, so hoping you can help me

I'm purcharing my tools & materials at the moment and I have come across a PMC shrinkage ruler.  Now, I've decided to try ACS first and as I understand it the shrinkage rate is different to that of PMC, do you know if there is a ACS shrinkage ruler on the market?

I'll be designing rings to start with, is ACS similar to PMC in that you make the piece 2 sizes larger to allow for shrinkage?

Thanks in advance 
Lou</font>

[Metalman]

The Art Clay Silver products shrink about 8 to 10 %.
This amount is fairly easy to figure  - also what I do is draw what I want to make and run in through the printer/copier and blow it up 9% - then I lay my work sheeting [ that Teflon stuff] over the print and build from there.

If I am fitting stones or glass into the ACS - I put 2 or 3 layers of masking tape on the object and build around it. Then I remove the piece [stone or glass] and do some clean up  - then fire.
Usually the pieces fits into the ACS opening pretty well.  Do this a few times and you can fine tune how many layers to use and/or which tape/ etc.

With regard to rings - ACS is different regarding the sizing,
I hope to have  a ringsizing chart into our Art Clay FAQ within an hour or 2

http://www.rings-things.com/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=10

[Metalman]

Here is the link to an Adobe Reader file on ring sizes

http://www.rings-things.com/acs/PreFiredRingSizing.pdf

[lou83]

All very helpful stuff Metalman - ring sizeing chart especially!

Thank you
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