I love doing raku. I threw some cylinders and transformed them into cats by folding over the top and then collaring in the neck. Cut out eyes, drew nose and mouth, and punched two holes over each eye and three in each cheek for wire insertion after firing. I dip the copper wire in E 6000 and then push it into the holes which I make with my needle tool - great whiskers and eyebrows. A friend gave me some copper electrical ribbon, which makes great bows for their necks.
Anyhow...to shorten a long story, I decided that my cats needed to have tiny handbuilt mice as pets, but the firing of the tiny pieces was a problem.
I visited a welder, who made me a firing basket with steel, expanded metal, and bent wire handle. It worked fine, but didn't last very long.
He came up with the idea of making the raku firing basket out of cylinders cut from old oxygen tanks, with expanded metal and bent wire handles. These work very well. I'm doing the mice, turtles, snakes, tiny fish, and miniature pots. The baskets are also a great way to fire raku beads.
You don't necessarily get the same results on each piece in the basket, but they are all pretty interesting. If you don't swing the basket, they stay put on their trip to the reduction chamber, and the contact area with the basket is small, so there may only be a little glaze adherence. This can be tourched up with a Sharpey pen or a copper writing pen.
Linda D in TX