Sylvia See on mon 10 mar 97
Haaa haaa haaa!!!! :))))))))))))
Hi Fraser;
Been there. Done that. What a hoot. I just read your e-mail to my friend
and fellow potter/teacher. We've just laughed our fool heads off and she
insisted that I respond to your firing.
The one suggestion we've heard a zillion times, is try it, and the sure
critic is it won't work or there must be something wrong with it if it did.
We got into the lets try it faze. We were beginning Raku and someone said
to my friend, who is a hairdresser, what do you do with all the hair you
cut? Wouldn't it work well for Raku reduction? Well we tried it. The stink
was so bad, I'm sure they could smell it in the next town. We were all
almost sick, and she could hardly cut hair for a few weeks.
One beautiful weekend, no wind, rare in southern Alberta, we were rakuing
up a storm and ran out of pots with Raku or grogged clay, so we wondered
what would happen if we carried on with some pieces that were ready for the
electric kiln. Just a couple. the kiln was already hot, nice summer
evening, and away we went with it. Well it worked beautifully.We used a
piece of Fiberglass with a brick partly over the hole in the lid for
reduction. So the next day I had a bunch of pieces already glazed and ready
for electric, and I thought I would do a full load in the Raku kiln and see
how close I could get cone 10. I am using an old cone 10 7cu.ft. electric
kiln (wires removed) on wheels with a metal fence post attached and a
pulley system for the lid, so it should work fine. The results were pretty
good, and we weren't worried about crackle or strength as they were not
functional (food) ware.
We were pretty excited and had wanted to salt fire and try using soda
instead of salt. We quickly sewed some small sacks and filled them with
damp soda ash and had a nice big pile. The plan was to throw them in the
bottom of the kiln in front of the burner. Well we knew enough to know the
soda would glaze the shelves and posts and since we had just watched Walter
Keeler on a special by CBC we had taken note of his salt fired kiln. It
looked like it was made from ordinary bricks, (what we would call chimney
bricks), so we got busy and rounded up some. We used them as posts for the
shelves, as we thought they would make the kiln studier, in the event it
got bumped, while we were busy tossing the soda. My friend went home as we
thought we should take it up rather slow and do this right. I watched the
pyrometer and it was well over cone 6. I phoned her to see when to start
the soda and she thought maybe take it a cone or 2 higher. I waited until
about cone 7 and started tossing in the soda. Also chucked in some small
pieces of wood leftover from building construction, a little ash would be
nice with the soda, right?It seemed to be working well, boiling and
bubbling away in front of the burner, so I thought I would let it go higher
and do it some more. I went in for supper, and when I came out I checked
through the top hole and my pots were gone. I could not see them anywhere.
I ran to the house and phoned Bertine in a panick. She insisted they had
to be there, I insisted they weren't. Over she came and the pots were
gone. Definitely gone. We knew they had to be in there, but the kiln had
been loaded to the top and we could not see anything. We let it cool
slightly and couldn't stand it and opened the lid to see what was going on.
There they all were on the bottom of the kiln. The chimney bricks had
melted like molten lava, and they had slowly melted to the bottom of the
kiln. Not a single pot broke. It happened slowly and the pots separated the
shelves. Of course, I had interesting pots with lava type brick struck to
them, the shelves were wrecked, and I now have a new bottom on my raku kiln
made from fiberglass. However, I keep those pots as they are a great laugh
for us. Also the little bags of soda that I thought had been working so
well had eaten the firebricks on the bottom of the kiln. However, I do have
some neat soda-ash fired pots without molten brick on them. I now get a
little soda with every Raku firing as well. Since I picked the kiln up
cheap I wasn't upset with the incident, and we certainly had a laugh. I do
use my Raku kiln for reduction firing on occasion, but since I have the
hole in the lid, we are still working on how to deflect the heat at the
top. Think
we have that solved now as we saw a gas kiln similar to mine and how to
put a piece of shelf just under the hole on the top shelf. I have not
fired food functional pieces in it but it's fun for vases, etc fun stuff.
Lesson 999. If you want to have fun experimenting, go for it, but I would
recommend that you not do too much of it in new or expensive equipment.
Old electric kilns picked up for 50 to 200 dollars, give years of service
even after nuts like me do their best to destroy them.
Sylvia See
Claresholm, Alberta sylviac@telusplanet.net
I really like my bifocals
My dentures fit me fine
My hearing aid works perfect
But Lord I miss my mind!!!!
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