People keep sending me links to that German feminist hacker collective that made wild clay PCBs, and while i think that's pretty cool, the way they applied the conductive traces felt a little like a cheat to me because they were sort of painted on.

Last night after someone linked me to it again, i suddenly remembered my experiments with adding copper powder to ceramics glazes, and how, by smothering the red-hot ceramics in sawdust, i was able to reduce the copper oxides into something that looked like metallic copper. That got me pondering.

So, i applied some tinning flux meant for plumbing to a small spot on this test piece from last year and hit it with my soldering iron. Sure enough, it tinned the copper, and with that, i was able to solder a piece of wire to it.

Your eyes to not deceive you. This is copper wire soldered to a piece of ceramic pottery and it is firmly attached.