Well, I fired the kiln again yesterday, this time with a lower firing transparent glaze on the pots. Took the kiln up to cone 6 with a short, 15-minute soak at the end to get the cone fully over..and shock, horror, I got some bloating
again on the pots!! Have to say, I am a little annoyed about this, as I used this clay five years ago in the same way, and it easily managed cone 6 and 7 with no problems.
As with so many things these days, the manufacturers meddled with the formula of this red stoneware clay and have made the body quite alot smoother. I didn't know that when I bought these two bags a couple of years ago! I'm sure this change has made the body more prone to bloating..a coarse clay will release trapped gases more easily.
Anyway, the pieces below came out fine.. so now the quest is on to find a clay which will withstand cone 9 and fire to a dark brown in oxidation. Am I asking for the impossible?
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| Bottle vase, approx 8 inches tall |
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| Sake cup |
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| Small tea bowl |
Have you tried Standard's 306?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lori, it looks interesting but I doubt it's available in the UK.
DeleteOpps, sorry, I didn't check where you lived before replying. Good luck then.
DeleteThanks..maybe I can find something similar here, you never know.
DeleteVery delicate and lovely work Mark!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Maria, you made my day!
DeleteI love seeing dark clay through the glaze or any clay through the glaze, these are wonderful, especially like the cup.
ReplyDeleteAre there any potters in your country who you can contact directly and ask about a dark clay? In my high fire reduction days I used Laguna's Black Mountain which was nice, even some of the gold clays did interesting things with the glazes.
Thank you, Linda, glad you like these. The potters I know who do this kind of Kohiki style work fire in reduction. In future I intend to wood fire some of them using a clay with moderate iron content, which will get round the problem. Ah, I have heard of Black Mountain..a friend on flickr also uses it for wood firing ..haven't seen anything similar for sale here in England so far.
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