elizabeth l gowen on mon 27 sep 99
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Years ago a guild member and I had read and article on throwing pieces and =
fast
drying them in a kiln. ( perhaps the one in CM, that was mentioned ) We made
some mugs attached the handles at a fairly wet stage then dried them on top =
of a
firing kiln, I believe raising a shelf on stilts on the lid. We used a =
highly
grogged body to help the moisture escape, fine grog so could throw with it.=
We
found that it had to be wet not leather hard to be rapid dried, or it would
explode. They were ready to bisque the next day. Occasionally, if I got a =
bit
nervous that it might be too thick, I would pierce the piece with a pin =
tool to
help the water/ steam to escape. The piercing was made part of the design =
and
later filled with a runny glaze. We had a lot of success with it . The major
problem was the kiln we put it on, I believe was a Paragon, that had a metal
cover over the fire brick and it rusted to near nothing in about 10 firings =
so
we quit. Today the L=26L I have has no metal cover so I may have to try it =
again,
I had forgotten.
I currently use it to mount kiln packs and put the wet packs in to a =
heating
kiln (pierced ) without problems. Not sure if I'd want to do it with kids =
stuff
unless I experimented a bit more. Let us know how it goes if you try it.
Liz Gowen
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