Sunday, January 23, 2011

Mental Note

If the lid's handle is still to hot to hold onto... the ware inside is still way to hot to look at.
I typically "Crash Cool" my cone 6 glaze pallet over a 12 hour period. This is more due to impatience than science, but it's been a process of natural selection has picked through dozens and dozens of tests. Unexpected results are looked for at this point.
During the firing, I aim to drop cone 5 with a bit of a soak, looking to get cone 6 starting to tip as well before shutting down the kiln. After that, the kiln temps drops as fast as it can with just the peeps out until it gets to around 250. By then I get inpatient enough to prop up the lid until I can actually hold the handle on the kiln lid.
Then it's time to unload...


It's looking to be a good crop of clay for this years TideWater event.

6 comments:

Linda Starr said...

Thanks for the info on the crash cooling, I've been doing a slow cool down to 1400 then letting it cool naturally with only top peep out, below 500 it seems to take sooo long to cool but I'm using so many different glazes in each load I better stick with the slow cool for now. I did have that one pot crack at the top of the pot and it was on the top shelf close to the front of the lid and the peep, I might have propped the kiln lid too early I've got to keep more detailed notes about that too, I keep learning more each time, thanks again, beautiful results again.

Mr. Young said...

Awesome bowls there my friend!

Unknown said...

Love the different colors~

connie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Julie V. said...

Great pots!
I love your different textures and layering methods. I wanted to ask you a question about the 3rd picture for this blog entry. I am mesmorized by the gold tone on the bottom 1/3 of this bowl.

Could you tell me what you did on this pots surface. I love the effect between the cobalt/blackish glaze and the gold effect. Is this a photographic effect or does it really look that gold in person?
Please help.
Thank you,
Julie

Joel said...

It's the Amber glaze I was using at the time. That glaze turned out to be sensitive to what kind of iron was put into the mix.

http://fetishghost.blogspot.com/2010/03/cone-6-amber.html

It's a really nice glaze. make sure to test it on your clay body.

It's not gold. it just is really nice.