banorkin on mon 28 feb 00
I am sorry to say that it is not an accurate statement that repeatable
results can be obtained using the method of temperature control and
treatment of raw materials. If I am honest about it, what is true is that
results are obtained with each firing but they are not repeatable, although
they may be very close in appearance. I am also not of the opinion that
using this method that truly meaningful experiments can be carried out
either. I want to add that the method of grinding that I described using a
diamond angle grinder may be irresponsible on my part. I use an assisted
air hepa filter respirator when I use it and am still not sure that it is
safe to use even taking that precaution..
I want to apologize to all of you for missrepresenting what it is possible
to do with crystalline glazes using the method that I described.
And to the gentleman who asked me if he could post my artilce to his
commercial web site, I have lost your name, and if you read this, I ask you
to remove that information from your web site, thank you,
I also want to add that the method of stilting that i described using
insulating fire bricks involves a lot of loss with the base of the was
chipping trying to remove the brick. In some cases the brick does shear off
on its own leaving a minimum of gringing, but also in shearing off on its
own many vases suffer serious flaking off the the glaze and porcelain around
the vases bottom. In many cases the brick becomes fused to the vase and
extreme care must be exercised to remove without ruining the vase. Some
glaze compositions melt into the brick itself and are incredibly hard to
remove after the firing.
With regard to to stabalization of the thermocouple, I am using that
solution myself but have no way to scientifically verify whether or not in
practice that it stabalizes anything as accurately as I thought in the
situation in which it is being used. And to date, I have not fired my oven
with cones to verify whether or not the cones bend in the same position from
firing to firing. I am accepting the fact that my results using this method
are random.
In addition, I am not sure that the kiln that I described is free of cross
drafts and updrafts and i described. Its design is different than my
previous kilns that I constructed, that I abandoned using because of safety
considerations.
Again, I want to apologize for missleading you and influencing you to have
unrealistic expectations as to what can be done with this method. I have
been an irresponsible and unobservant scientist in approaching this problem
and regret having shared my methods and proceedures. Many of my
speculations about what a crystalline glaze is, what the structures are that
form in the glaze are, what happens when a crystalline glaze melts are all
speculation based on superficial observations. I have no proof of their
validity based on real scientific observations and tests.
If you plan on using any of this information in the production of
crystalline glazes, I would strongly recommend that you check out every
detail with a real expert in ceramics or temperature control.
Bevan Norkin
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