F. Melville on wed 26 feb 97
Lottie,
At present I am working on small sculptured figures bisqued to ^06
and glaze-fired in a natural gas kiln to ^6. Each figure takes me many
hours and days to complete and accidents happen......a finger or whole arm
fall off in the harder-than-leather-hard stage and no amount of 'spooze'
will stick it back permanently. Or upon opening the bisque kiln, I find
other such small disasters. I tried most remedies found on this list plus
a few of my own with very limited success. Grog (chamotte) plus sodium
silicate for instance, if it works, gives a messy looking surface. Various
vinegar mixtures do not succeed at all, high-fire cement such as 'Trowleze'
works up to ^06 but cracks again at ^6. So two firings ago I tried your
talc/sodium silicate mix on a piece of broken bisqued sculpture. I fired
to ^6 (1200C) and Eureka! It worked! My next experiment was to try the
same mix plus a little dry powdered clay from the same body I was using for
re-attaching a whole arm which had fallen off an unfired figure. I did
this at the bone-dry stage finding that on damper clay it would not stick.
I bisqued and glazed as usual. Again, success!
Thank you very much, Lottie. I am not scientific and don't care
much why or how it works, just extremely grateful that it does.
Francoise
F. Melville
Indalo Pottery
P.O. Box 95
Port Edward, B.C.
Canada V0V 1G0
Email:fmelvill@mail.kaien.com
Theresa Bayer on thu 27 feb 97
Re. re-attatchment of missing appendages from dry sculptural figures
I make small sculptures in porcelain, and even when it's bone dry I can
always re-attatch a broken piece just by dampening both pieces with a paint
brush, the kind you'd use to apply underglaze. I keep "painting" the lost
appendage with a little water, over and over again on the seam, until it's
back onto the piece. It always fires successfully. And the broken spot
doesn't show.
Sculpting wtih porcelain isn't easy, but that's one of the good things about
it, how easily it re-attatches in the greenware state.
BTW, I'm a newbie to this list. Hello everyone...
Theresa Bayer
Austin TX
F. Melville on fri 28 feb 97
To all who have emailed me privately asking for the sodium silicate/talc
recipe for bisque and bone-dry mend:
To begin with, I do not wish to take the credit for this recipe.
Lottie from Sweden was the first to post it here on Clayart, thanks again
Lottie - I merely tried it and found it worked for my sculptures.
There is no 'recipe' as such - just mix sodium silicate and talc to
a paste and add other things to taste. Experiment! I suppose one could
say that the most important ingredient is, as for most other things I mix
up, IMAGINATION. Just find out what works for you best! I just hope it
will be of use to you too.
Francoise
F. Melville
Indalo Pottery
P.O. Box 95
Port Edward, B.C.
Canada V0V 1G0
Email:fmelvill@mail.kaien.com
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