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fumes

updated tue 9 nov 99

 

mel jacobson on mon 8 nov 99

i can remember the first time i bisque fired my first school kiln...1961..
the entire room filled with smoke, fumes...smelled like an old streetcar
back end from 1949...sulphur coal fumes. (street cars were heated with
coal stoves.)

i called american art clay company.....`hey, we got smoke in our room,
and it smells like an old streetcar in winter`...
`no,no, it cannot be true, our clay is clean`...
well, what the hell is the smoke....?
nothing...nothing...
had the school district attorney call them...ask them...

well, it seems that the clay was mined in ohio, very near a used up
coal seam...tons of sulphur... green smoke.
they took it all back.
gave me new. and a great deal of other things.....art supplies.

that was a great many years ago...but, it taught me one real lesson.
we never know what is in a clay body...so be careful. vent.
and sometimes at amaco.

mel/mn
http://www.pclink.com/melpots
from minnetonka, minnesota, u.s.a.