so....

i've been having a small problem with bowls developing s-cracks. here is what i think is happening: when i slip bowls i only slip up to the foot ring, i don't slip inside the footring because it becomes too much of a mess and hassle, i can wax the footring but then it becomes hard to grip,etc, etc. after it stiffens back up i glaze the interior. i think the pots are cracking due to uneven expansion where the inside of the footring is(because the footring has no added moisture on one side?) this doesn't happen everytime, but it does happen too much. sometimes i don't even notice it until after i fire which means i just wasted good kiln space with a cracked pot. if this sounds like false logic to those more experienced than i in raw glazing let me know.

so after much debate and frustration i've decided to go back to bisque firing. slipping the pots leatherhard has no effect one way or another so i'll keep doing that. what this means for me is that i have to haul all my pots up to the university to bisque them and then bring them home to glaze and fire them. so i've decided to cut out one of those steps and move much of my studio up to the university. they've given me private studio space that is nearly as large as my studio now and get this, they have heat and air conditioning. this saddens me a bit but it really seems to be the most economical way to do things. maybe it'll be good for the students to have an in-house potter. i have my own wheel up here so i may leave mine at home for the occasional home potting, who knows? i think in the long run it will be more beneficial.

cheers.

come on already.

whats with the friggin s-cracks? i thought we were over this.

yesterdays work

here are the pieces that i finished up yesterday, hopefully i'll get them slipped/glazed this evening. it seems to take forever when it comes to lidded pieces for me. thats probably six hours work in finishing these pieces; lid tweaking, trimming, attaching handles, etc.



these are some small vases i made with the briscoe-via-philbeck board squish technique.


cap-jar foot detail.


i love the surface on this jar. the hakeme is the old 80/20 flashing slip and on the rim & lid was a tile6 slip, should've looked quite different from eachother, but i like it all the same.

i spent today up at the university. i loaded a bisque kiln with a bunch of platters and large vases. i'm trying to reduce these small feet cracks i'm getting with my platters and i think bisquing will help eliminate the problem. i also spent a few hours inventorying and making a list of the materials needed for the coming year, that was a lot of work.
cheers.

for kent.

here is my interpretation of a faceted casserole. i haven't done any faceting for a couple years so i'm a bit rusty. it could use some tweaking but i only made one. faceting doesn't look good with my slips, but it was a fun idea to try.

more pots

here are a few pictures from the firing. sorry a couple of them are blurry.

good firing.

my camera died after these three photos, so i'll go out later and take some more. this was a superb firing. i lost a few pieces but that always seems to be the case with this kiln. the door side always leans towards the oxidation side of neutral, i'm guessing because of the stoking door being opened and closed, the bottom door side also fires cooler than the rest i'm assuming from the same issue. i've learned to use it to my advantage a bit.

this looks a little more washed out than it is, most of these pots on the door front are soft yellows, very nice.


ripoff? over did the glaze trailing a bit.


two of my larger jugs did this. i think this is an expansion issue from the raw glazing.

i'll post some more later.

waiting game.

i finished the firing at about 4:30am, the kiln was pretty fickle most of the firing, well more than usual. it was real erratic with temperature gains and temperature fluctuations for the first 3/4 of the firing, again more than usual. i had an unusual stack this time so that may be part of it, but i'm just not sure.

i had a nice little reception from the fire department at about cone 9, 2 trucks and 3 police cruisers, someone called them and told them our barn was on fire. while explaining to them about the kiln and that i had a permit i lost about 150 degrees and was asked if i could keep the flame from coming out of the stack because we're under burn ban. so i proceeded to fire with the one or two sticks every 30 seconds method which actually got me back up to cone 10 in about 30 minutes, then i gave it a good soak and shut her down. i had the fire marshall stop by this morning and take a peek at the kiln and he told me that while we're under burn ban i need to have a spark arrester on the stack, he was real nice and told me how to make one because of the size of my stack it would be expensive to buy one. this is grass fire country so these guys take their business very seriously, this is what happens when people are careless with cigarette butts and sparking tailpipes and such things, that place is the next county over, about 30 minutes from here.

unloading wednesday afternoon, keep your fingers crossed. cheers.