mel jacobson on fri 28 apr 06
tony's note last week hit the nail right on the head.
they throw a very high silica clay/ in fact nigel wood claims
it is almost pure glass. they must throw thick and trim to perfection.
the pots that we saw being turned that way were bone dry and trimmed
with very long/tapered/super sharp hand made trimming tools.
(pix of this process on the clayart page.)
caroline cheng is using a combination of 50/50 eejing clay and jin/da/gin
clay. she claims it throws well, and fires to a nice buff white. that
leads me
to believe that there is brown stain in the eejing clay that burns away
at cone 10. if it was pure iron/well it would not fire white.
the folks in modern jin/da/gin are making a great many pots with
molds....including tile. so, a great deal of that clay is being poured
into molds...many of famous forms. we saw a great deal of that.
and, they are nice...but i am sure are being shipped to shops all
over the world selling fine porcelain.
the huge pots that we saw being made were indeed thrown using
several men. they just stack the dry modules/add water to any height...that
is, as tall as the kiln. the day we were there, they had a power outage
and the guys were playing some card game...and one guy was really
pissed as he lost a big hand. so, they would not talk to us. or show us
anything...we just wandered...but any old time potter can figure the
process. very straight forward. and you could tell from the trim piles
that they really cut away a great deal of clay. dry.
i think everyone is using the same clay in jin/da/gin...but then it is a big
commercial pottery city and who knows what goes on behind the walls.
they are smart folks and know what they are doing. thousands of people
working the clay industry.
mel
from: mel/minnetonka.mn.usa
website: http://my.pclink.com/~melpots3
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