Laurie Kneppel on thu 5 feb 04
Raku pants. Forgot to mention an observation based on hundreds of
student raku firings. Better to not wear skin tight jeans when standing
close to an open raku kiln. The heat goes straight to your skin
underneath. Very quickly! Loose fitting long pants are much better and
provide a little air space between the fabric and your skin. One size
too large sweat pants are my favorite. WITH my dandy kevlar apron over
everything, of course! I bought the apron from one of the catalog
ceramic supply companies, can't remember exactly who it was. Cost about
$45 at the time and hangs to just below my knees (I'm 5'5"). Haven't
had "hot legs" since I got it.
One time in class the gal on tong duty was wearing loose jeans that had
just come out of the wash that morning. She thought they were plenty
dry enough to wear, but they were still slightly damp. When we opened
the kiln her legs started steaming after a few moments! Her jeans got
dried real fast, but she got "hot legs" from the steam.
Clayart is great for sharing our experiences. In the "old days" we had
to learn by doing without any benefit of group experiences to help us
learn how to be safe.
Raku + common sense safety precautions = FUN!
Laurie
Sacramento, CA
http://rockyraku.com
william schran on fri 6 feb 04
Laurie wrote:>Raku pants.... Loose fitting long pants are much better and
provide a little air space between the fabric and your skin.<
And to add - wear cotton or other natural fiber - synthetics could
catch fire or melt!
Bill
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