Finishing a Clay Birdhouse

Video Transcript

"So now that we have these two pieces of the birdhouse completely finished we are going to go through the firing. This is the way they are both going to sit in the kiln and because of that we have to fire them separately. But once they come out of the kiln we are going to want to connect them so that they can hang and the way that we are going to do that is by using a really strong contact cement. It needs to be something that will hold up to the weather and the elements. E6, 000 is a great brand and there are some others that will work but this one is really good and I would highly recommend it. What you are going to do is you are going to take this glue. It is just a tube of gel and I am not going to use it right now since this piece is not finished but you are going to put a thin bead all the way around the outside of this and you might want to take this and draw the circle so you will know how big and you will take a thin bead and put it all the way around on the inside of the lid as well. Now you want to leave that area unwaxed so that the epoxy or the contact cement will stick to it very well. Now with contact cement you want to let it set up for a while, 30 seconds maybe until they are tacky but not completely hard and then very firmly push the two rings of contact cement together. This causes a chemical reaction that fuses them together very strongly. This will hold the weight of the birdhouse, the bird, the nest inside and everything else. Then you just hang it from your rope and you have got your birdhouse."