Richard mahaffey on mon 8 jul 96
Hello clayarters,
I have used several extruders and I like the Bailey pneumatic extruder
with the stainless steel barrel with the expansion box. This extruder is
really well thought out. You can do large extrusions easily if you can
step on the pedal and you can do small extrusions by putting the die
holder up inside the expansion box. I use WD-40 on my extruder because
it seems to give a better extrusion and I agree with Paul Lewing it makes
clean up a breeze. The quality of the extrusion is largely dependent on the
quality of your die. I use aluminum at least 1/4" thick and 1/2" if I can get
it at Boeing Surplus. I machine them on a milling machine using a tapered
cutting tool so I can get a little extra compression on the extrusion for
extra strength.
OLSEN FAST FIRE KILN
Fred Olsen designed the Fast Fire kiln not to create pots with a Bizen
like effects but to fire glazed pots using wood as a fuel, as efficiently
as possible. The kiln can be fired in a longer firing to have the glazes
come out with more "wood fire" effects (read warmer) but that was not it's
intended purpose. The glazes seemed fine in the firings I saw and the short
firing seemed to have little effect on them.
I think we need to open our minds a little and try things before we decide
they will not work. As an example; I fired an oil kiln in Japan several
times and the slowest firing I could manage was 6 hours with most averaging
around 4.5 to.5 hours.
The same glazes on the same clay body fired for 10 hours to the same
temperature showed no differences. I would have bet you could tell the
difference but we could not much to the chagrin of my Japanese potter
friend who insists on very slow firings.
Well it worked on the glazes I used anyway.
Rick Mahaffey,
Back in the USA and missing Tokushima very much
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