KILN REBUILD

I've been plugging away at the kiln site. I have had to stop to get more bricks, silica sand and Hawthorn 40 fire clay for the mortar, etc.  I do have some pictures of the latest progress I've made. 

 Gate from above. There will be removable grate bars for the whole door width front to back, I have the just the front half removed here. I will be able to just walk in to load the kiln.

 

Door arch is done.

 First support...

 Support frame ready for lath.

Lath on and wall started.

Fire box door frame with pavers.

 Door arch and chamber arch in place. I'll cut and fill the gaps on each side, after. Super duty's on the inside and IFB's on the outside.

 Walls going up, both sides at the same time. I've got angles to the pavers for iron framing to grab on. I have approx. a 5/8" gap between the wall and the chimney filled with Kaowool to allow for the expansion of the bricks.

You can see how high the back top of the old chamber was. With this taper, I will keep the back hot with out over firing the front. 

More progress on the kiln rebuild...

I have more done on the enlargement and reshaping of my manabigama. I had all the excavating done and was ready for stone dust base to put my concrete blocks on.  I took my time and got them all leveled up and ready for the expanded steel mesh or lath as some masons call it.                      

Now I started the layout, in brick as I had everything done on paper, making room for my shelves and the firebox. I made the necessary adjustments and it's looking good.  I moved the level for the grates up one brick as I know it's good to leave enough room for lots of glistening embers without choking the primary air intakes.

Now i can get the brick saw and make up some special mix mortar consisting of 50% fireclay and 50% grog. I'll make it the consistancy of peanut butter for troweling and like a milkshake for dipping. It will setup nicely when we fire. No Portland cement on the inside of the kiln though. I will add 10% to the outside's insulating coating (as a binder) of the course sawdust, fire clay, vermiculite and sand mix.  I will also use chicken wire to hold the insulation together as it will crack. 

I will remove the placed bricks and "mortar" them in place. This was a "dry run" to make adjustments where needed and get the layout right.

BAMBI (OR BAMBETTE) RETURNS... (THE STORY VERSION)

Quite a while ago, I had a picture of this fawn on my blog, bedded in the thicket next to my house. I have thought of the encounter often. So..."What about it??" you say... well here's my story. Once upon a time, I built a wood-kiln. Not a huge one, but one I could fire by myself.  I have been spending all of my "clay time" making pottery to fill this kiln so I can learn how to fire a wood-kiln. I now have fifteen firings under my belt and I feel pretty confident that I have a good grasp on it. I have to admit that I didn't spend as much time on some of the work as I would have liked to, but I didn't want to waste "clay time" on a poor firing. Understandable. I remember not being able to get past cone nine until after my third firing. I can now get to twelve in no time... I actually hold the kiln back now for the results I want. So, what does this have to do with the fawn!!?? Talk about dragging it on and on ... So, now that I am confident with the kiln, I have been putting more time into the pieces. I was a sculpture minor in college and have missed sculpting and now I have been doing more sculptural pieces for the next firing. I have sculpted objects on top of pottery, sculptures all by themselves and I just finished a serving dish with a fawn bedded inbetween the logs on top of it. I am working with a fettling knife in the first picture, carving details in a log.

I want the end of the log to look old and weathered...

And have the bark peeling away... and a good shape for a handle.

Add a few shale/limestone rocks like there is poking though the forest floor up in my woods...

A bed of leaves to keep dry on... Bambi has returned, just in clay form.

I also made some casseroles with a simpler fawn, this particular one is a mule deer fawn...

So... looks like I'm starting to get my sculpture "fix" now, and it looks like the snow is melting some.  I've had enough winter. There was three feet of snow out there just one week ago! Closed all the schools in the area.

Guess what I was doing? ... besides the driveway...

Looking forward to firing soon. I have enough for a kiln full now, just need to melt some snow.

And, I have some more teapots, couple with the birds I've been seeing at the feeder every day...

THE END

A TEAPOT FOR DOWN UNDER ...

I was commisioned by a couple from Melbourne, Australia to create a teapot and pair of his and her cups as a house warming gift to themselves. They are moving into their new home in mid-April. After several conversations about size, shape, color... and a sketch, we had a plan.  I did warn her that the kiln has the final say and I would do all I could to make it work. She understood and off I went.

I started with throwing the body, spout (not shown), lid and a pair of cups... plus an extra. I'll make/pull the handles later. I let these parts stiffen up a bit to what we call leather hard. What follows is a rough tutorial on teapot making, adding a few techniques and tricks I use to create one. I hope you like it.

Now I'm cutting and test fitting the spout to fit the profile/curve of the body. You can see my chamois on the edge of the bucket is attached to a cork so I don't lose it in the water and that's the top of a fish aquarium heater in my water bucket so my water isn't cold during the winter. I also use a mirror to see the profile of what I'm throwing so I don't have to bend to the side all the time. I had a bad auto accident many years ago and my lower back needs a little help.

Once the spout fits well, I traced around the spout so I would know where to put the strainer holes.

I started to drill the holes and I'll smooth and bevel the holes later with this tapered "plug".

Now I'll "score and slip" the two pieces together using a piece of comb and slip/wet clay.

I add this tapered coil of clay under the lip of the spout and smoothed it in place. This creates a lip that will stops drips from ... well... dripping. The drips won't go "uphill".

I put a vent hole in the lid and added a pulled handle, adding a coil to each side as a decorative feature. It also gives the handle the needed thickness to look balanced visually.  I have bent the handle to compliment the swirl I added to the body of the teapot. I also filled in the juncture of the handle and and spout so there would be a nice "flow" from one into the other. I like how the undulated foot compliments the swirl and handle angle. I could have made the opening of the spout a bit higher, adding a couple of ounces of capacity to the teapot, but I like the looks of it where it is. Also the angle of the spout opening compliments the angle of the back of the handle on the right side. These are some of the considerations I think of when designing the piece. It's like a sculpture to me.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of this teapot in future posts as I go through the glazing, firing and finishing of it.  Cheers...

STONE QUARRY HILL ART PARK - WINTERFEST 2011, WOOD-FIRED RAKU

We had the Syracuse Ceramic Guild's Winterfest-ivities today. Folks from all over Central New York came to Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, N.Y. for a day of snow filled activities. There was lots of sledding down the big hill that the Art Park sits on. Inside the barn was hot chocolate, coffee, snacks, etc. and Denise and Sheila helping visitors with the un-frozen raku glazes.

There was a core crew of four of us, braving the blustery cold winds to fire our almost new, wood-fired raku kiln. "Double D" Dave, Dave "L" and me on the right, are prepping for the start while Sabrina took a minute to help prepare things inside. Wood splitting, unthawing and pre-heating the bricks took a bit of time to do.

Here's "Double D" Dave ('cause his last name starts with D and the other Dave's last name starts with L) splitting some wood in anticipation of the high temps we needed later. We fired to approximately 1850* F

Here's two of the kids glazing, I think the lens fogged up coming in out of the cold, as a few more rest in the background, and when the pots come out, we preheat them a couple of minutes to finish drying them, as they're freshly glazed pots.

Now the firing takes about fifteen minutes to get to temp, then I remove the door, we take the still glowing, orange - hot pots out with long tongs and place them in a trash can that has a few inches wood shavings in it, throw a big hand full of shavings on top of the pots and then Sabrina quickly pops the lid on while the shavings are still burning to create a smoke filled can. The glazes are molten at this time and will be affected by the changes in the atmosphere. We are reducing the amount of oxygen (why we call it "reduction") and increasing the amount of carbon particles, which in turn affects the looks of the clay and glazes (creating surface lusters, crystals and keeping copper and iron from returning to it's oxidized state which would change the color dramatically).

Maybe I should have titled this post " A Raku Tutorial - Winterfest Edition "

I SLIPPED.......

 I slipped .... in more ways than one. I slipped into overdrive over the holiday season. Glad that's past. Busy with shows, the usual - set 'em up, work some hours, take 'em down, put away. I slipped some wood into a now empty bedroom and "arrainged them" into a studio for Mary Ann's growing bead and jewelry business. Here are the results before she started and after two hours of breaking it in. Glad she likes it.

 I slipped back into some throwing again, made a few boards of teaware, mugs and tumblers (my boards are 18" x 24"... worth mentioning as I know a lot of potters think of a board as 6" wide by 24" or more long.) 

I slipped a peek out the studio window at my kiln, as it patiently waits for me to fill it. Looks nice, even in the winter.

And I slipped some molds I picked up at an estate sale and I have been experimenting with some small molds of animals. I slab built the cart to go with them (whatever they are now) and temporarily secured the pieces with some bead wires from my wife's new shop. I did some research about making a slip from your own clay body and after a bit of a learning curve, I got it straight. Get the specific gravity right, then add sodium silicate/Darvan to make it pour well. I've always wanted to try adding some slip cast elements to my thrown and altered work.  I have wanted to do some sculptural work for a long time (my minor in college) and have some ideas that I am going to put in motion.

Now I won't mention anything about going down to the studio and putting on Jimmy Buffett's song "Slip Sliding Away..." but I will mention the winter roads get really slippery when it hits -14* like it did on Monday and I was slipping and sliding on my 40 minute commute to work ... 

LMAO!!!    I slipped again!!  Did I say Jimmy Buffett's song??? I meant Paul Simon!! I think my oldies recollection skills need sharpening! Hope I don't slip and cut myself while sharpening... 

ONE PROJECT DOWN...

And 999 to go... I finished the entertainment center I showed you a little of last time I posted.  Here's a couple of views. I just need to sand and take the diagonal brace off. Mary Ann is going to varnish it.

And... speaking of views, I caught this one a little later in the day.

A NEW THIS ... and a NEW THAT...

Just wanted to show you some brushwork I'm trying again. The tricky part is getting it hot enough without too much ash to obliterate the designs. Placement in the kiln is everything... well very, very important anyway.  Last time I tried it, I ended up with too much running.  I know this type of work is usually saggered... but, I gotta' try it this way.

Next new thing I'm going to try is making my own handles. I have been making grape vine handles from vines on the edge of the woods. There are three for starters.

 This is a very small kyusu that should hold about 5 oz, good for gyokuro.

I did some handbuilding too... A sake set made out of slabs, before glazing...

... and after glazing with a couple more pieces.

Back to glazing... and a couple more experiments.