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Saturday 14 February 2009

First stool in the kiln

This good old tea trolley is one of the workshops best assets. It has been re-enforced but it did creak somewhat alarmingly under the weight of the stool.
The tip from Jim Robison was to not onl y use a layer of sand, but also a sheet of brown paper to assist with sliding the clay with out damaging the surface of the clay. I lined up the levels pretty well with a spirit level.


We got it into the kiln with only the merest chip on the under edge when the stool rolled over the merest change of level - a millimetre at most. (Next time 'nearly' level isn't good enough, Christine). I fired it last night, taking it up to a high 1160c bisc for the maturity of the black clay. I was so excited having got it into the kiln in one piece and was concentrating on programming a slow rate of initial climb, that it wasn't until bedtime that I remembered that I was mean t to be going to 1160! Panic, and back into the workshop late at night to alter the settings half way through the firing. Did I remember to put vent holes in ALL the hollow sections...?

1 comment:

  1. haha note to self! i always loose those....I'm anxious to see the finished deal, amd so good to see you managed to fire some other pieces in the kiln too, can't bear empty spaces but i just had to do one of those firings coz i needed to get some test tiles through,,grrr.. mumble mumble...

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