Making natural red clay beads?

So i live in a place where red clay forms. I found these pieces in a ditch. Theyre still really moldable. Im storing them. I want to make dread lock beads. i have no kiln. I was liking to hear from any experienced dread bead makers for advice, any clay workers on advice for a kiln. keep it rockin, dread rockin!!
updated by @kye: 01/13/15 09:01:41PM

well

i dont know much about that but does remind me of something

you saw my drum in my pics i'm sure?

well the story of how i got it involves a kiln

and specificly building a kiln in the woods

ok so the story 1st and im not promicing it will be usdefull

i was at trade circle and some kids wanted some jewlery i made (i'm going to assign values so u get an idea of how this trade cycle wemnt)

the jewlery i traded the kids (30$)

was traded for what they had in a pocket

2 pebbles (0.00000001 cents?)

1 broken earing they found on the ground (lets be generouse and say 10 cents)

a rubber band and plastic baggie (dime bag type) (3 cents)

20 minutes go by im making more jewlery and running low on silver

i traded the broken earing and pebble for a snickers bar (30 cents?)

the snickers for a roll of wire i was told was silver (but felt too stiff) if it wa silver (15$) since it wasnt (3$ maybe)

an hour later a brother comes along sees the wire tells me its high tension wire percfect for building his kiln

he trades me 3 pipes..clay pipes ..skulls with both eyes being bowes these double bowel pipes 1 was a skeletal arm holding the skull the other 2 just skulls but with john lennon style glasses that fit over the bowels keeping the weed in and hidingthe fact that its a pipe (left on my dashboard through being pulled over several times)

1 of the 3 pipes (lets say the pipes were 15 for the 2 30 forthe 1) i traded for 3 drums

2 clay 1 metal

lets say 75# each maybe less i dunno

the 2 clay drums broke fast the metal 1 i hated

i traded that for mine probly worth 200

not bad for starting from pebbles

anyways the kiln (yea i know im getting to that)

was made by coiling the wires hooking it to a car battery and building a mud uenclosure

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

I just use my gas oven for my clay, it's store bought not sure if that makes a diff but I put it in at 325 and it works great

I had some red clay years ago. It was packaged, but said air dry. I made beads out of it and loved them. Then I painted them and made jewelry and even sold a few. The beads ended up breaking. Not crumbling. but they would break with very slight pressure. I would do some research and see what kind of temp. you would need for it to cure. Could be something a fire pit would do or maybe a handheld torch.

As far as I know, you do not actually fire red clay. Last time I was in Georgia, I made an ashtray from some clay I found outside and just left it in the sun for a few days... just experiment and see if it'll dry naturally.