What's the best kind of wire to use that can stand being kilned?
that really depends what you want to do and how high you are going to fire. Generally nichrome 80/20 wire should be OK until cone 9. Then there is Kanthal which will withstand even higher temperatures but is more expensive than nichrome. You could get either probably in electronics supply houses. If you do lowfire, maybe up to cone 06 or lower steel will probably be OK. The surface of the steel will oxidise and so get clearly thinner, keep that in mind. Generally your wire and the clay should not be in direct contact because they have different thermal expansion coefficients. Depends how rigid your wire is if it will lead to major damage to your piece. But if you wrap your wire with paper before you put clay around it it is probably OK as long as you don't enclose the entire thing with clay into a hollow space. But it also depends on what exactly you are trying to do, e.g. what kind of clay you are using. Mostly people use wire with clay for making beads. If that's what you are doing you can also look up bead making techniques.
