Today on the way back from teaching, I stopped by the seaside shell pile to collect some cockle shells for firing. Though I usually don’t find “the good ones”, today I got lucky. Pictured below are the two types in the area. The thin type with the many, shallow grooves comprises about 99% of what one can find, so I usually use those, but today I found quite a few of the deeply grooved bumpy, thick shells. These are better for standing pots on because they are thicker and don’t collapse in the firing, so they don’t need to be stuffed with fire clay, at least for small to medium sized items. They also leave a more interesting mark on the pot.
People sometimes lament the limited effects possible in gas and electric kilns compared to wood kilns, but there are ways to get many interesting effects in gas and electric if you use your imagination and do some experimentation.
This time around I loaded about half of the kiln with saggared ware. 4 incense burners, 3 sake cup refires, 2 boxes, 2 teabowls, and 1 frog toilet (in porcelain, no less).
The incense burners came out most interesting, with a lot of deformation occurring in the clay, which was the goal. Nakayama kun wanted some burner bodies that were deformed and all around ‘grungy’ to fit with silver lids. They were wrapped in rice straw rope that had been soaked in a saturated solution of soda ash, mixed with some feldspar, the idea being to get some focused area effects on the pot surfaces. The soda ate into the clay in places and fluxed the feldspar nicely. One of the burners completely collapsed and stuck to the saggar and the adjacent burner, but I’ll be able to keep 2 out of the 3.
Two of the teabowls, with iron based glazes turned out nicely, but one (the black one) stuck to the saggar and will need some repair on the lip. Nakayama kun is going to do a silver repair on the lip, and I’ll post a picture when it is done. The other, and iron saturate glazed bowl, turned out nicely but I really can’t decide if I like the glaze color or not. Need to whip up some tea in it to see if it shows off the tea color well or not.
The porcelain ring boxes were a complete failure, with cooling fractures I think. I drizzled in a soda/spar slurry on the insides and it was waaay too thick. I think its expansion and/or contraction fractured the pots.
Pieces packed with soda soaked straw and charcoal
incense burners after firing
unwarped incense burner body w/charcoal and soda effects
burner bottom
inside view
burner which was side fired on shells
lip detail. the ash dripped here in a dark green pool. I don’t know what the little white wormlike things are. some look like they dripped from above. Maybe excess silica from the straw rope?
ring boxes with soda and feldspar soaked rope
after firing. they all cracked badly (shattered really). oh well, win some lose some…
ame yu bowl saggar fired with charcoal. too bad this one tipped into the wall and melted on. had to break off some of the lip to remove it. will post a finished picture of this one after it is repaired.
iron saturate glazed bowl in saggar.
iron saturate glaze, with smoke corona. the charcoal was not even remotely round, but this corona is a perfect curve.
the glaze on the back of the pot
detail of the corona border area, I think the grey matte surface is iron micro crystals.
It has been raining cats and dogs since this morning, and we must have gotten about 8 inches in as many hours. Unreal. It is the first time the water has risen in my kiln to a level that would affect pots if they were loaded into the first chamber. In the past it has always stopped short of the front floor but today it was a couple of inches deep in the front floor area.
At least I had good weather yesterday and into early this morning for firing the gas kiln. Turned off the kiln at around 5 am (fired for 18 hours) and when I woke up at 6, it was pouring. Later in the day, I peeked into the kiln when it was still around 700C. Snapped a couple of pictures, with and w/o the flash. The first glance doesn’t look too good. Ame yu was a bit too thin, I think, but won’t know for sure until I open the kiln up completely and have a good look. One thing I am happy about is that the new clay blend I was testing seems to have stayed together nicely, no bad slumping (a little slumping, I like).
Got two more tons of cob mix delivered yesterday morning and finished up the top coat on the kiln. Lots of mix left over for filling cracks later, and also for finishing up the pizza oven next week.
One thing I was really happy about was not coming across any dead frogs in the cob, like the last load.
As you can see, great care has been taken to keep the front crack free. I’ve been paddling and burnishing it in a vain effort to keep it smooth.
You would think there is no real practical reason to keep the surface smooth, but the way it was explained to me, this is actually quite important, because during firing when the kiln leaves orbit and begins re-entry into the Ceramisphere, the temperatures and stresses exerted are phenomenal. Any crack or weak spot in the top coat could lead to catastrophic failure in the kiln structure. ; )
My apologies if you are getting sick of these water pictures. Whenever it rains and fills up, I for some reason am compelled to take a picture and post it. Some sort of weird compulsion I guess.
Anyway, I had an epiphany after the latest rain (we are into rainy season here now, with a vengeance). Why not use the kiln area as a koi pond when not firing? Not only would it likely be the first kiln in the world to also double as a water feature in the yard, but visitors could also enjoy the koi, and perhaps would even pay for those little packs of koi food, like at the zoo. Genius, no? OK, well, maybe not.
Still here’s that picture I am compelled to post.
With the primary air dampers closed, couldn’t the area under the grates be used as a separate enclosure for raising the fry?
The mud that I ordered came on Monday, and even though the kiln is still warm, I’ve started applying it. Actually, it really helps it harden faster and stay in place. It will crack pretty badly but it would anyway, and I plan to go back later and fill in cracks and joints later anyway. What you see here is one ton of cob, which is composed of unrefined red mountain clay, decomposed granite sand, and straw. I don’t know the proportions, but it shrinks about 3% from wet to dry.
Now that the first ton is used up, I need to order one more, and that should be enough to finish the job, then have leftovers for crack mending and a finishing coat, plus enough to insulate the new pizza oven that we are building from leftover kiln bricks.
While working this morning my twisted mind came up with this, you may be familiar with a slightly different version:
“I held the spade in trembling hands Prepared to slap it on but just then the phone rang I never had the nerve to add the final…. coat. “
