Diane Winters on mon 31 jan 05
Hi Randall,
Welcome to Clayart,
Wish I had the time to hunt for info that might be useful to you, but here's
the best I can do right now.
Are you a member of The Friends of Terra Corra (I assume you are since FOTC
"headquarters" is in NYC)?? Susan Tunick might be able to supply some data
on clay/grog composition, possibly even firing temps, or point you to
someone who can. Here's their website:
http://www.preserve.org/fotc/
Also there is, or at least was (I can't find anything on the net more recent
than a couple years ago) a non-profit, also based in NYC, called Restore,
run by Jan C.K. Anderson, which runs training workshops in architectural
restoration issues. Here's an article that gives some idea of what they're
about (if in fact they're still at it).
http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/20-12/20-12-13.pdf
The two main outfits doing architectural terra cotta today (mostly
restoration & reproduction work, but some new) are Boston Valley Terra Cotta
in Orchard Park New York, and Gladding McBean, still going strong out here
in northern California. Since you wouldn't be working on a scale that
would make you a competitor, Boston Valley might be able to give you some
advice/indormation.
As for working with self-hardening clay, I worked with it once and don't
plan to again. It was for a one-day public hands-on event celebrating the
City of Oakland's birthday and I had to use something that folks could make
"tiles" with at one of the downtown festival venues and then take home with
them. I used two different brands (whose names I've thoroughly repressed),
which were each quite different, and quite weird to work with if you are
used to normal clay. For the event, they served their purpose perfectly
well, but I would not choose to model with them myself.
Good luck with it,
Somewhere I may have info on firing temps, etc.,for the old architectural
terra cotta, but haven't the foggiest memory right now.
Diane Winters
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