mel jacobson on thu 26 aug 10
in my opinion, and those of orton, the cheapest item you
have in your studio, with the greatest results are cones.
i never try and re/use them.
i make about twenty batches of cones, and have
them on a window sill. dry as a bone.
throw them out. use new.
then, you never have questions in your mind.
penny smart, pound foolish.
memorize that.
and both economic and earth...never fire a kiln with the
possible results being a big question. bad pots, use a great
deal of fuel. and, that makes your bottom line leaner.
just like old glaze.
add it to your slop clay, or feed it to your
flower bed. don't make crap pots because you are
afraid to make a new batch of glaze.
in fact flowers love the chemicals in glaze.
think of hydrangeas turning blue. iron ox in the
soil. think of lime on your grass under the pine trees.
and, few of you use anything now days that will damage
mother earth...and, where did we get it to start with? the earth.
there are few things as `natural` than a bucket of glaze.
limestone
calcium
iron
quartz, think of what it `is`.
it is insane to think that people go to the garden store
and pay money for what you throw away.
mel
in fact, i have been known to mis/calc a 50 lb batch of glaze...and
then add it to my fertilizer spreader and run the tractor around my lawn
pulling the spreader...white powder on three acres.
nice. sure not going to put it on pots...that may cost me a thousand
dollars. and, i never put that stuff down the sewer.
if you actually understand what your materials are, know what it is...
your life gets better. many just buy it ready made...don't give a damn.
from: minnetonka, mn
website: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/
clayart link: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/clayart.html
new book: http://www.21stcenturykilns.com
alternate: melpots7575@gmail.com
David Hendley on thu 26 aug 10
Like Mel, I have spent a lifetime trying to learn about the
materials we regularly use. I think I can say that nothing
from my studio ends up in a garbage truck or landfill.
Of course Orton thinks the 'cheapest item with the greatest
result' in your studio is their cones. They make a tremendous
profit on every one - use 1/10 of one cent worth of material,
run it through a machine, and sell it for 10 cents. What is
that, about a 1000% mark-up? (I know, Orton is
non-profit, and the proceeds fund things like ceramics at
Ohio State).
There is no mystery about cones, and it is no big deal to
make your own, as I have done, using common materials
from the studio. They are spot-on, when test fired
side-by-side with a manufactured cones. I understand
that most people would rather simply buy cones, but
making your own is a viable possibility, as well as a
learning experience.
I'm not necessarily recommending it to others, but I use
one, count 'em, one, cone per firing in my wood kiln.
After decades of firing, I know that the kiln is dead even,
top-to-bottom, side-to-side, front-to-back. And I
certainly don't need a cone 9 to let me know that cone
10 will be bending soon - one doesn't go off and forget
about a firing with a wood kiln.
With a cone usage of 10 or 12 a year, it's not worth
it for me to make my own any more. I don't mind just
buying a box every 4 or 5 years, but I'm glad to know I
could make my own if I wanted to.
I have also gotten rid of old unwanted glazes in my
large vegetable garden. Around here, it is standard practice
to 'lime' the soil by spreading limestone on pastures and
in gardens, to make the acid-leaning soil more alkaline.
Things like iron and copper are also valuable trace minerals
for soils.
A few years ago, on Clayart, I recommended this practice
and heard from someone who wrote that pouring glaze
in her yard killed the grass. The idea here is that the glaze
materials are worked into the soil, not poured on plants.
Gardens aside, my favored method of getting rid of
unwanted glaze remains simply adding it to the mix when
I make a new batch of clay. It's a 'free' flux, which is added
to the claybody anyway. A cup of glaze in a 100 pound
batch of clay is totally irrelevant and not noticeable. Even
a cup of an iron saturate glaze added to a batch of pure
white porcelain is not noticeable.
I learned years ago that there is no future in trying to use
'scrap' glazes. Like I'm going to take a chance ruining a
$20 mug so I can use up $1 worth of glaze chemicals?
The chance of the glaze actually looking pleasing, even if
it works technically, is close to 0.
At least if the offending glaze is truly recycled in the garden
or in a claybody, some benefit is derived from it.
David Hendley
david@farmpots.com
http://www.farmpots.com
http://www.thewahooligans.com
----- Original Message -----
> in my opinion, and those of orton, the cheapest item you
> have in your studio, with the greatest results are cones.
>
> i never try and re/use them.
> i make about twenty batches of cones, and have
> them on a window sill. dry as a bone.
>
> throw them out. use new.
> then, you never have questions in your mind.
>
> penny smart, pound foolish.
> memorize that.
> and both economic and earth...never fire a kiln with the
> possible results being a big question. bad pots, use a great
> deal of fuel. and, that makes your bottom line leaner.
>
> just like old glaze.
> add it to your slop clay, or feed it to your
> flower bed. don't make crap pots because you are
> afraid to make a new batch of glaze.
gayle bair on thu 26 aug 10
Hi Mel,
You must be psychic.... just yesterday I was wondering if my habit of =3D
throwing my=3D20
slop bucket and water from glazing on my passive compost pile would pose =
=3D
an=3D20
issue with fine particle dust when I use it on the flower beds later.=3D20
Gayle Bair
Bainbridge Island WA
Tucson AZ
gayle@claybair.com
www.claybair.com
On Aug 26, 2010, at 6:17 AM, mel jacobson wrote:
> Snip>
>=3D20
> just like old glaze.
> add it to your slop clay, or feed it to your
> flower bed. don't make crap pots because you are
> afraid to make a new batch of glaze.
snip<=3D
John Post on fri 27 aug 10
David Hendley wrote:
> Gardens aside, my favored method of getting rid of
> unwanted glaze remains simply adding it to the mix when
> I make a new batch of clay. It's a 'free' flux, which is added
> to the claybody anyway. A cup of glaze in a 100 pound
> batch of clay is totally irrelevant and not noticeable. Even
> a cup of an iron saturate glaze added to a batch of pure
> white porcelain is not noticeable.
This summer I took a pottery class at a local community college. (I
am required to take 6 college credits every 5 years to maintain my
teaching credentials.) They use a very white clay body and make a
batch of 1000+ pounds daily. I went to place a bone dry vase with
black slip on it into the reclaim, and 3 people making the clay saw me
and started yelling, "You can't put that slip covered pot into the
reclaim, it will mess up our clay body!"
So I gave them my David Hendley explanation. Then I told them how I
have poured a cup full of temmoku glaze in a white clay body I was
making in a Soldner mixer and it had no impact on the fired body. I
pointed out that when you make colored clay bodies, it is expensive
because you have to use a significant amount of stain to create a well-
colored loaf. But in the end, they didn't want to risk getting a
couple of grams of colorant in their 1000 pound batch of clay. It
really didn't matter to me one way or the other whether the vase went
into the reclaim or into the garbage can. What I did find interesting
was the stubborn belief that a few grams of colorant could impact the
color of a 1000 pound batch of clay.
John Post
Sterling Heights, Michigan
http://www.johnpost.us
>
James Freeman on fri 27 aug 10
When I was working out of the studios at the local college many years
ago, someone left a huge hunk of porcelain clay laying about, probably
8 pounds or so. It was seriously contaminated with a coating of brown
stoneware dust, and had gotten hard as a rock. The tech had
conniptions when I tossed it into the reclaim barrel for the brown,
hippie stoneware. Can't be contaminating good brown stoneware clay
slop with all that nasty kaolin!
...James
James Freeman
"All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice.=3DA0 I
should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed."
-Michel de Montaigne
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesfreemanstudio/
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com/resources
On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 11:22 AM, John Post wro=
=3D
te:
>
> This summer I took a pottery class at a local community college. =3DA0(I
> am required to take 6 college credits every 5 years to maintain my
> teaching credentials.) =3DA0They use a very white clay body and make a
> batch of 1000+ pounds daily. =3DA0I went to place a bone dry vase with
> black slip on it into the reclaim, and 3 people making the clay saw me
> and started yelling, =3DA0"You can't put that slip covered pot into the
> reclaim, it will mess up our clay body!"
>
> So I gave them my David Hendley explanation. =3DA0Then I told them how I
> have poured a cup full of temmoku glaze in a white clay body I was
> making in a Soldner mixer and it had no impact on the fired body. =3DA0I
> pointed out that when you make colored clay bodies, it is expensive
> because you have to use a significant amount of stain to create a well-
> colored loaf. =3DA0But in the end, they didn't want to risk getting a
> couple of grams of colorant in their 1000 pound batch of clay. =3DA0It
> really didn't matter to me one way or the other whether the vase went
> into the reclaim or into the garbage can. What I did find interesting
> was the stubborn belief that a few grams of colorant could impact the
> color of a 1000 pound batch of clay.
ivor and olive lewis on sat 28 aug 10
Dear John Post,
Perhaps the Clay Makers (Student assistants !? )were concerned that in a
teaching institution where 1000 lbs of fresh clay was created each day for
the multitude of students just one instance of discarding a tainted object
might set a bad example, which if perpetuated, would lead to a breakdown of
Student discipline.
Your tormentors chose the wrong argument.
Hope they did not mark you down for your errant ways and that you were
awarded your Credits.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis,
REDHILL,
South Australia
Lee Love on sun 29 aug 10
On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 12:55 PM, James Freeman
wrote:
> hippie stoneware. =3DA0Can't be contaminating good brown stoneware clay
> slop with all that nasty kaolin!
Maybe it wasn't a class/political issue. You had no responsibility
(you were the Hippie, the tech was the establishment). The tech did
have responsibility.
For all you know, you could have been putting a nice rock of
white earthenware into the stoneware. When it makes a mess in the
kiln, who is singing "Don't worry, be happy!" Not the tech.
--
=3DA0Lee, a Mashiko potter in Minneapolis
http://mingeisota.blogspot.com/
=3D93Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel
the artistry moving through and be silent.=3D94 --Rumi
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