Donald G. Goldsobel on thu 15 oct 98
I,m getting ready for a pitfire\campout and I have never really dom\ne it
with adequate preparation before. At the last one I attended, one of the
men said he used ball clay straight as terra sig. The kicker was he just
mixed it with water and applied, no settling, no decanting and he got a
glossy white, smooth surface. Has anyone used this technique. I can't test
it before the event and would like your imput. I miaxed it up, put it on
one bisque piece to see what would happen and it buffed up fine.
Vince Pitelka on fri 16 oct 98
>I,m getting ready for a pitfire\campout and I have never really dom\ne it
>with adequate preparation before. At the last one I attended, one of the
>men said he used ball clay straight as terra sig. The kicker was he just
>mixed it with water and applied, no settling, no decanting and he got a
>glossy white, smooth surface. Has anyone used this technique. I can't test
>it before the event and would like your imput. I miaxed it up, put it on
>one bisque piece to see what would happen and it buffed up fine.
Donald -
Ball clay is probably the only clay where you can get away with this. I
suggest you deflocculate the mix, by adding 1/4 of 1% (of dry clay weight)
each of sodium silicate and soda ash (dissolved initially in a small amount
of hot water - a hand-blender helps), adjust the initial mixture to
approximate that of milk, let it sit overnight, and decant it into another
container, abandoning any sediment in the bottom of the first container.
The sig will be thinner now, and you might have to thicken it up a bit by
placing it in a metal pan overnight in the oven or in an open kiln turned on
low. If it dries out too much don't worry - you can just add water and whip
it back to useable consistency with a hand-blender. It should be the
consistency of whole milk when you use it. If possible check check the
density and adjust it to approximately 1.15 g/ml (specific gravity of 1.15
on an appropriate hydrometer).
But I cannot sign off without admitting that I am a complete fanatic about
sig, and if you REALLY want to do it right, check out my speil on terra sig
on Tony Hansen's IMC webpage at
http://digitalfire.com/education/glaze/terasig.htm
Good luck -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - vpitelka@DeKalb.net
Home 615/597-5376, work 615/597-6801, fax 615/597-6803
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Peggy Heer on fri 16 oct 98
This works fine...divide up the white terra sig and add RIO to it for a
red/black pot. Just don't shake up the RIO at the bottom of your
container...works fine. Keep it real thin though if putting it on bisque.
Been there...done that. ;>}}}
As Always In Clay Peggy
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I,m getting ready for a pitfire\campout and I have never really dom\ne it
>with adequate preparation before. At the last one I attended, one of the
>men said he used ball clay straight as terra sig. The kicker was he just
>mixed it with water and applied, no settling, no decanting and he got a
>glossy white, smooth surface. Has anyone used this technique. I can't test
>it before the event and would like your imput. I miaxed it up, put it on
>one bisque piece to see what would happen and it buffed up fine.
Peggy Heer / Heer Pottery E-Mail p4337@connect.ab.ca
52120 Range Road 223
Sherwood Park, AB. Canada T8C 1A7
Phone (403) 922-6270
http://www.ffa.ucalgary.ca/artists/pheer/
http://www.connect.ab.ca/~p4337/
(Linda Mueller) on tue 20 oct 98
I use about 30% ball clay, 70% lowfire white claybody slip and red iron oxide
to color taste ( orange, red, red-brown) or black iron oxide (gray to black +
plus a little mason black) I have found that ball clay painted alone on
lowfire wt burnishes very well. You still have to do a low bisque (08 - 010)
before putting it into the smoke fire.
Just use a stack of red bricks and stack the pots with sawdust in-between and
inside of the pots too. I start this with a little paper and pine straw on
top and cover it with an old garbage can lid and just let it smoke along. If
it seems to not smoke much, I open little ports between the bricks. Let it go
out by itself and open the next morning after everything has burned down.
mary donahue
shiva d. potter
tallahassee, fl
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