I recently decided to work with art clay 950 instead of the fine silver art clay, as it is a bit stronger and I supposed that would be better as I am working on rings.

Now I realised (a bit too late - I already bought the clay) that you need a temperature controlled kiln as it needs to be fired in two stages so that the binder can be removed first. My kiln only works at one temperature setting (850C) and I am wondering, could I pop the piece in my normal baking oven instead? The highest temperature there is 230C, would that be efficient for burning the binder off? Maybe for a bit more than the suggested 30 minutes since I can't get it up to the recommended 300C?

I don't really understand why the first heating stage is necessary at all, wouldn't the binder burn off anyways at the higher temperature?

Thanks,

Corinna