Richard mahaffey on thu 14 aug 97
Dear David,
I have used a fan-forced electric heater to quick dry pots durring the
rainey winters here in Western Washington. A common choice is the "milk
house heater". I learned this from F. Carlton Ball, who used to make
section pots up to 5 or 6 feet tall. This technique allowed him to trim
the putside of these biggies before he was completely done sith the tops.
I prefer the type that has no tip over saftey switch, but these are more
dangerous. You simply put the heater as near as possible to your turning
pot, if it is not turning it will dry unevenly, then go read a few
articles in the newspaper or so someother task in the studio for a few
minutes. The drying time varies with weather, wetness of clay, thickness
etc. The aded benifit is that these heaters do not make the horrible
noise of a hair dryer-heat gun type of tool.
I hope this helps.
Rick Mahaffey,
Tacoma Community College
Tacoma, Washington 98466
Akitajin \"Lee Love\" on fri 15 aug 97
Another quick drying method I use is to place a screen over a square
electric radiant heater. These heaters hang on the wall flat and are
supposed to look like bad motel art. I found a couple of them at
Goodwill.
At first, I tried putting just thrown work directly on the
surface of the heater, with the heater laying on a table, but because
there was no circulation on the bottoms, they dried everywhere but the
bottoms.
I can throw small things, set them over one of these heaters long
enough to become leather hard, trim them and then put them back over the
heater to complete drying. I have thrown, trimmed and dried things this
way and then put them in the bisque kiln in under 5 hours.
I usually make my large things first so they are dry ahead of
time, but they would dry faster over the heater too. I'd have to put
kiln stilts under the screen to support heavier work.
Jack mentioned using a 100watt lightbulb. I've seen folks use
infared heat lamps to do this too. These get a lot hotter: you can see
the steam roll off the work if the lamp is too close.
Lee
~
Lee in St. Paul, Minnesota U.S.A.
http://www.millcomm.com/~leelove/ikiru.html
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