Handy tip for making a gently curved pendant

File this one under: It may not be news to you but I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.

One day last spring I searched the big neighborhood garage sale for something with a dome shape to use as a curing surface for pendants. I found an old metal gas cap from a car which was perfect, except that I could only do one at a time. Recently I had a need to cure many pendants but they were not round so a dome wasn't necessary. Just a simple curve was required but every bottle or can I found had a tighter curve than I wanted.

After staring at my messy clay table, it dawned on me that the solution was literally in front of me. I realized my bead rack could be used in a different way. I laid my pendants on 3x5 index cards and rested the cards on the "rails" of the rack, allowing the weight of the clay, the gravity and the heat coax the pendants into a gentle curve.

Some of the test subjects are above...no clear winner yet (and some don't fit the assignment but were all part of the mix of this holiday "playcation" on my day off.