Cheryl Hoffman on mon 8 jul 02
Hey All,
Good firing results to report!
Two months ago I was whining to the gurus about a major glaze-making
goof. I made up a 10 gal. pail of glaze using 7% CU oxide instead of CU carb
and, as if this wasn't bad enough, I added tin AND zircopax instead of
either/or. A lot of you Gurus (special thanks to Tom Buck) talked me through
that one. Lesson learned: don't jot down a recipe in shorthand when you're a
newbie and don't know your oxides from your carbonates and then make up a 15
# batch of it.
Then last week, I was whining about problems with glazing the bisqued
pots that had sat out in my very humid studio in very humid New Port Richey,
FL (for those that asked where in FL) for TWO MONTHS! Duh! Took the
advice...dried them out before glazing. Problem eliminated. Lessons
learned: don't wait two months before glazing a bisque load in a humid
climate. Drying pots + humidity = Good. Bisqued pots + humidity = Bad.
So-o-o-o, in the spirit of American courage, on the 4th of July, I
fired a whole kiln-full of an untested glaze. And, TA-DA...they came out
even better than I hoped. Nice soft, glossy sage color. Not a drip on a
foot or shelf. Perfect surface on the Helios claybody, richer color on the
Highwater P-10, and quite interesting on the orangestone. The bottom shelf of
my kiln consistently over-fires and I had some minor flaws there so I'll have
to pick your brains on that one later. I only lost 6 pots out of 58...not
bad for a newbie. The six were the water soaked ones. I smoothed the cracks
& pin holes out and fired them anyway to see what would happen. The glaze
just slid off the rims and left bare spots. I learned my lesson.
I couldn't have done it without all you folks out there...a sincere
Thank You.
Cher Hoffman
Michele Williams on fri 12 jul 02
----- Original Message -----
> Good firing results to report!
Cher,
It's so good to hear of newbie success. I don't have facilities, so I can
only dream for now.
I wanted to ask you if you'd be interested in a potters' gathering or
"event" in Miami next spring. I'd like to try to put something together, but
I am rounding up a bunch of potters in Florida to see what the response
might be first.
I've had classes in ceramics at FIU and I'm told the art department there
could be courted to do this with us if we had enough people who are
interested. We have 15 kilns--electric, gas, raku, and a "smoker". We can do
all temps, lusters, crystals, ox, red., you name it. We could have it as an
active workshop atmosphere where we make and fire as well as share and
learn.
Would you be interested if it were in late April, early May and reasonably
priced?
Michele Williams
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