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Here’s the new ‘millrack'(mfgr’s name for it), a cheap alternative to a full size ball mill (called a potmill here). The cheapest ball mill I could find was about $700, but this little millrack was about $250. I thought 250 was a bit much, but after it arrived and I got to see the workmanship I was pretty impressed. Very high quality materials and parts, with replacement bands for the friction wheel, and tools necessary for assembly included, and I don’t mean one of those cheap thin stamped metal wrenches one sees so often. There was one nice wrench and two stainless hex wrenches included.

I plan to do some milling of my problematic iron pigment with it, as well as mill down some feldspar I brought back from the mountain a while back. It’s been run through a roll mill, but is still too chunky for use.

The mill rack assembly was very simple and you can see how it fits on the wheel, sorry I don’t have it running, I still have a hump I need to finish. I think you can see how it would work from the picture though. When not in use it folds back behind the wheel, and I can cover it with cloth or plastic to prevent it from getting dirty.

I’m planning a homemade stampmill (single stamp), but though I have a good idea how to build the frame and stamp, then mount it above the mortar, I really have no clue how to hook up a motor to turn the wheel which would lift and drop the stamp arm. Any thoughts/illustrations would be greatly appreciated.

The third pic is of my nifty new height adjustable faux harley seat stool. I got it at Costco for about $100 and it is worth every penny. It adjusts from very low to very high so I can use it at the electric wheel or the kick wheel, or just wheel it around to the tables in the shop to work. It keeps the hips tilted forward and at the right height so I haven’t had any lower back or knee pain since I started using it.

Here are a few more keepers. I liked the teabowl body and glaze. Shame about the foot, though.

Here are some of the keepers, few as they are. They are the ones that have little or no iron decoration. The kairagi glaze, though crawly, is very silky smooth to the touch. There is a warmth to it that is lacking in the madara and ame glazes, I guess because they melt so completely.

The tokkuri is about 17″ tall. The yunomi form was one I experimented with for the first time, and I really like it. I think it could really look good with a little more tweaking. The inside of the yunomi is glazed with ame yu underneath, with kairagi yu over the top. Creates what is called ‘jakatsu’ (snake skin). Because the ame yu melts well even at cone6, the kairagi layed down and melded with it nicely, even though it had peeled most severely over the ame yu to begin with.

The previous post as well as this post show the smaller work with equal disastrous results. On the smaller pieces, the kairagi glaze was applied correctly, but anywhere it went over brushwork, it just peeled back.

I’ve gone back and applied the kairagi glaze again to a few pieces to test refiring them. Because the clay body is fired, there is much less crawling after application of the kairagi glaze. My expectation is that after the refire, the pieces will look more like E-Shino work, and will be smooth enough to be used as they were intended.

My iron pigment was collected from the side of a dam. The iron bearing water left a deposit of iron on the concrete about 1cm thick. I scraped it off, bisqued to get rid of the algae, slime, and vermin, and worked it in a mortar to smooth it out. Not enough though, or so it would seem.

My ball mill came in today. I ordered one to process my iron pigment, smooth it out so that I never have this experience again. I also added a bit of ball clay to the pigment. It’s not a true ball mill per se, but a frame with a wheel that can be mounted to most shimpo wheels, to turn the wheel into a ball mill drive. I have my kickwheel to use, so milling some of my found materials won’t make my work ‘grind’ to a halt. : ) I really want a stamp mill, and am in the process of designing one. I’ll post pics of the shimpo driven ball mill later, once it’s installed.

Here are the largest pieces, the big tsubo is 20in. tall and weighs about 7 pounds fired.
Well, the glaze crawled right off of the underglaze iron, and in some cases the grey slip, in a dramatic way. The large pieces were difficult to glaze, so ended up with much of the glaze too thick, which is why the crawling is so severe. The bottom right of the smaller tsubo picture shows what the glaze should look like when it’s applied and fired correctly. Very nice to the touch as well.