This Week I Will Be Mostly...Glazing.

This week it's all about glazing. In fact I have plenty of glazing to do because I have enough bisque fired pots to fire two glaze kilns (which I plan to fire next week - all being well of course).

In the photo above you can see the kiln shed as it was a week or so ago -with pots waiting to be fired in the bisque kiln. And below are a few last minute shelf fillers - some tiny stoneware cottages, in a mixture of stoneware and black clays.

After I fire a kiln I always leave it to cool for a whole day in between. This makes sure all the pots are cooled down to 'room temperature' before I crack it open. Even so, they can still ping with the temperature change and make noises! I cracked this bisque kiln open last Friday: and below shows the kiln shed after I've opened and unpacked everything.

You can pack more pots into a bisque firing than into a glaze. In a bisque kiln the pots can touch each other and be stacked, but in a glaze they can't. So I already had some 'spare' bisque fired pots left over from the last firing. And this is why I've got two glaze kiln's worth of pots to glaze this week.

As you can see in the photo above and below there's a variety of small batches here. I've discovered that small batching in this way makes the best economical use of my kiln. Over time you get to know how many pots will fit onto each shelf and in what combinations. Even so, I still scribble a small 'floor plan' of each kiln shelf for each glaze kiln just to make sure everything will fit. There's nothing worse than having a couple of glazed pots left over which you can't fit in!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these photos. My studio is currently a mess of glazing buckets, sponges and sieves! And there's still plenty of pots left to do...

Christmas Stock: New Ceramic Bells and Star Tea-light holders.

New Star Cut Out Tea-light Holders

Christmas is officially back on track! In my last post I mentioned I was having kiln issues. Thankfully these were resolved after fitting a brand new isolation switch. The new one is more robust than the last one - which burnt itself out. Hopefully the new one should do a much better job and last longer too.

I was very lucky that nothing else seemed to be wrong with the kiln. I ran a small test firing to check the controller and thermocouple were behaving themselves by programming in a simple ramp of 30 minutes to about 30 degrees. All seemed well. So I spent a week glazing all my pots ready to fire two separate glaze firings.

Un-packing Glaze Fire 

After packing one of these kilns, all I could do was cross my fingers, turn on the switch and hope it all worked! Luckily it did. In fact I had two perfect glaze firings - one of which you can see in the composite above. Some of these pots have already gone out to galleries or for orders. But the rest are available in my Folksy and Etsy shops.

Ceramic Christmas Bells

So now I have a new batch of ceramic hand bells in stock. They come in two glaze options: plain white, and blue and white. And I also have a new version of my tea-light holders with a star shaped cut out. I think they work really well - and I wonder now why I didn't think of making them years ago!

Christmassy Star Tea-light Holders

Events News:

I'm going to be exhibiting at Quarr Abbey again this year for six days beginning next Thursday. So if you're on the island please do pop in. Here's a listing with all the details.

Thanks for reading!

Kiln Issues - A Problem with a Bisque Firing (Christmas on Hold!)

Christmas Bells Drying in the Kiln Room

I'm currently in limbo and don't know yet whether Christmas is cancelled or not! Last Sunday I packed the kiln full of pots for a bisque firing. Most of the pots are Christmas stock ready for the busy season and include a batch of Christmas Bells (see the photo above).

Everything was going well with the firing and seemed normal right up until about 550 - 600 degrees C (which was when I went to the kiln room to put the bungs in). I noticed an odd smell, but thought it was probably just an excess of steam and vapour coming out of the vent. Now the seasons have switched over, my pots are taking longer to dry. So I thought maybe some pots were a bit 'damp' when I packed the kiln, and this was causing the fumes.

Christmas Stock including Star Tea Light Holders waiting to be packed into the Kiln for Firing

It wasn't until I went to turn it off at the end of the firing a couple of hours later that I realised something had happened. Opening the kiln room door, I could see the kiln was glowing orange but the controller and electrics were dead. At this point my heart sank.

I checked the trip switch but that was fine. So something must have happened further down the line. It was evening and I'm always tired on firing day, so I felt pretty down. I was also frustrated with myself for not checking in on the kiln every hour to see progress. So I had no idea what temperature it got to before it went kaput. But the fact the kiln was glowing orange suggested that it might have got close to bisque temperature (which in my case is 1000 degrees C).

BEFORE: Four Shelves of Pots Packed for the Bisque Firing

Pottery is mostly a waiting game, so there was nothing I could do except leave it to cool. This would take at least a day and a half before I could risk cracking it open. In the meantime I must have gone through every possible scenario: explosions from damp pots, collapsed shelves, burnt out elements, frazzled electrics, mice chewing through the wires... I was preparing myself for losing all of my pots (that's a month's worth of work) and having to start again.

Finally Tuesday morning came and I opened the kiln. And this was the result (below). Unbelievably all the pots had bisque fired perfectly! Or at least it seems like they have. They all feel and look like I expect a bisque pot to be. I haven't tested any yet to see how they take on glaze, but I'm pretty sure they're fine. So I'm absolutely chuffed and relieved.

AFTER: Success! Bisque Fired Pots (against the odds)

I also discovered that my isolation switch for the kiln had cracked and a part of the plastic casing has melted. Probably this was the source of the smell. Everything else 'looks' fine (elements, thermocouple, wiring) so I have all my fingers crossed that it was just the switch. I have to wait again though (until next week) before I can get a new isolation switch fitted and have the kiln checked out. So the saga isn't over.

But I now have a new appreciation for my kiln! I suddenly think it's a legend for doing so well and getting all my pots safely through to bisque. I've decided as soon as I get the kiln running again I'm going to make something in thanks: the kiln gods need an offering...

Setting Up the New Studio

New Shelves (and Brackets!) in the Kiln Shed

It's been a busy few months setting up the new studio. In fact so much has been happening I'm not sure where to begin blogging about it! I also didn't document the process - or progress - very well, so I don't have many photos. But here's the short version of everything that's been happening.

I began setting up the studio in January. The most important thing was getting a new space for the kiln. My poor kiln was stored in the garden shed for three months wrapped in bubblewrap and tarpaulin to keep him warm and dry. Luckily the winter wasn't harsh, so in January a new kiln room could be built ready for the electrics to be installed. The Electrician was booked for the 15th of Feb, which meant Valentine's Day (the day before!) was spent preparing the new space and moving the kiln into situ.

By the way, I don't recommend spending Valentine's Day with just two of you trying to move a 17 stone kiln out of one shed into another over soft mud using improvised duckboards on a steep gradient! Luckily there was only one injury - me. I crushed the palm of my hand between the kiln and the door frame, leaving a lovely big bruise for a week. But at least the kiln was installed safe and sound!

The Kiln in its New Home - Pouring Bowl Sets Stacked for Bisque

Anyway, the kiln room is now officially up and running with some shelves/ware boards (or at least brackets for future shelves!). I also treated my kiln batts to a good clean and a fresh coat of batt wash (pictured drying out below) which I usually do once a year at the start of the new year.

Panorama of One Half of the Main Studio - Kiln Batts Drying Out

In the meantime I also made some pots of course. After being featured in Landscape Magazine, most of the pots I decided to make were custom order pouring bowl sets - as well as a few staple pots like modern pourers. This was ideal really, not only because it meant the kiln was earning its keep, but (as the forms are so well known to me) it also made it easier to get back into the flow of throwing after a break over Christmas.

Freshly Thrown Bowls on Batts - These Became Berry Bowls

In fact, it was a good idea all round to stick to familiar pots I knew how to make and I'd recommend it for a first firing in a new studio. It meant I could quickly plan how to pack the bisque kiln (which pots go where) as I've done it so many times before. It also helped with glazing too. Apart from one big bowl which I glazed in Aqua, I chose to make pots using just my white glaze so I only had to prepare two tubs - there's nothing worse than returning to an old glaze that's been quietly solidifying into an impossible cake at the bottom for three months! Also, the last thing I wanted to do was 'creative glazing' when I didn't even know if the kiln would work. So instead, I tried to keep things as simple and practical as possible.

Pouring Bowl Sets Drying

As for the rest of the studio, things are still 'ad hoc'. It's a work in progress. Things are currently 'in a place', but not necessarily in the ideal place. It's actually quite disorientating working in a new space - even when making familiar pots. Nothing is quite where you thought to remember to put it - if you get my meaning! I'd sit myself down at the wheel thinking I was ready to start when I'd realise I'd forgotten to get something basic - like water. Oh well, I'm sure it will all slot in to place eventually. But at the moment there is still so much to plan and do...

RESULTS...

By the end of March I fired the kiln for its first bisque and also its first glaze! I'm delighted to report that everything went perfectly! The bisque was perfect, the glazing all went well and the glaze firing was perfect too. It was such a relief. It had been on my mind for about a year since deciding to move house - worrying if the kiln would be OK...

Here's a few photos of the pots that came out - my first pots in my new studio.

Since then I've bought some new bags of clay and I'm ready to make more pots and fire more kilns! (Fingers crossed!)

Packing and Firing a Glaze Kiln

Yesterday I packed and fired a glaze kiln. Above is a composite of all four shelves as I packed them one on top of the next - number 1 being the first or bottom shelf and number 4 being the top. These are what the pots look like when they've had glaze applied, but before they've been fired. In other words they should look different by the time I open the kiln tomorrow!

When I pack the kiln I use the same shelf pattern for almost every firing whether it's bisque or glaze. In other words I put the same height supports between the shelves into every firing, so the gaps or heights between the shelves are in the same arrangement each time. The reason for this is because the manufacturers put the thermocouple in an odd place, restricting where I can place the shelves (see old post rant here!)

But now I've come to think this was a happy accident! Sticking to the same layout is a great way to fire a kiln. It means I always know that the bottom and top shelf can take higher pots of a certain size while the two middle shelves take lower or flatter pieces of a certain size. Bearing mind that when I pack a kiln I have to lean over into it with heavy shelves and fragile pots covered in a delicate dusting of glaze, knowing in advance where the pots can fit nicely is a great advantage. So having a fixed shelf system has made planning and packing every kiln much easier.

Of course the hardest bit about firing a kiln is the waiting! And I've got another 24 hours at least before I'll be able to open it and see the results. Fingers crossed!

Packing Kilns and Thunderstorms

Kiln, shelves, mask, tongs, gloves and packed pots.

I wonder how advisable it is to pack an electric kiln during a thunderstorm? This was my exact thought on Friday around 7am during a very atmospheric summer thunderstorm that lasted most of the morning.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled around in the distance or crackled close overhead. And I was out in my studio under a flimsy wooden roof, packing a bisque kiln. This requires leaning deeply over into it headfirst to place pots on the lower shelves. An electric kiln remember, encircled by elements made of coiled metal wires and encased within a metal jacket. Like a huge circular toaster…

I finished packing the kiln and closed the lid. Wearing a more sensible hat, I decided to leave firing the kiln until much later in the day when all threat of thunderstorms was over. So now perhaps I should add another safety check to my list when packing kilns.

Bisque fired pots ready for glazing.

Here’s my kiln-packing safety checklist:

1. Make sure the kiln is switched off. Obvious perhaps, and in fact my kiln has a safety feature which cuts off the electricity supply when the kiln lid lock is opened.
2. Clear all the space around the kiln. So I don’t trip over anything.
3. Wear a mask. My kiln has a lot of ceramic fibre around the top rim, which is an irritant, and harmful if breathed in. (Yes, thank you manufacturer for warning me!!) It’s horrible stuff so I wear a P3 mask, an old long sleeved shirt and even gloves so it can’t irritate my skin. I also drape an old tea-towel on the kiln edge when I lean over it to minimize brushing any fibres up into the air.
4. Mind your backs. Here’s the dilemma: trying to carefully lower a heavy shelf down into a deep kiln with only a narrow gap for fingers and without breaking fragile pots beneath or damaging the sticky-out thermocouple at the side. Oh yes and without any possibility of bending the knees! The answer – do yoga.
5. Remember the pots. Pots that are ready for bisque firing are brittle like chocolate eggs and sometimes the mind starts to obsess about placing that last extra pot into a tight awkward space. It’s easy to take a chip out of pots this way or make a crack. I use my tongs (which I bought a long time ago!) to place small tricky items lower down in the kiln or between gaps.
6. Don’t load a kiln during a thunderstorm.

Glazing and First Glaze Firing

Glazing Bird Bowls

Making Glazes and Glazing Pots.

Since my last blog post I’ve been busy making glazes ready to test them out in the kiln. I prefer making my own glazes from scratch using raw materials rather than buying them ready-made. Knowing what ingredients go into each glaze gives me a certain amount of control over the results. It’s also very satisfying knowing you made the glaze entirely yourself: it feels more personal.

The photo montage above features a batch of my bisque-fired pots being glazed ready for glaze firing. Most of the pots shown are my bird bowls in two different sizes (small and large). As you can see the glazes are quite odd looking in their raw state: in fact they’re often completely different in colour to the final fired result. One is my standard white matt glaze - which happens to look pure white in the raw state. But the other one – shown here highlighting the bird-tail handles - has a rusty colour at this stage, which changes to glossy blue/black when fired.

Once all the pots have dried out for a few days they can be glaze fired.

First Glaze Firing.

Actually, I can’t believe I haven’t already blogged about this yet! I did my first glaze firing in my new kiln about three weeks ago. Long story short, it was an incredibly stressful day. Not least because about eight hours in I made the mistake of fiddling with the control panel and accidentally turned the whole thing of! Luckily I somehow retained enough composure to quickly tap in an emergency program to finish the firing before the temperature started to drop. But the less said about that the better…

Well, next day (a full 24 hours after switch off) the temperature had cooled down enough to risk ‘cracking the kiln’. Bearing in mind the ludicrous mistake I made the day before, I was simply incapable of calling it. I decided either it was going to be a complete disaster (glazes running everywhere, pots ruined – the works) or a total success. Luckily it was the latter! In fact I unpacked the kiln muttering to myself over and over that I couldn’t believe it had worked. Every single pot came out perfect! Both of my glazes worked beautifully and I was incredibly pleased with the results. But I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t be fiddling with the control panel ever again!

Cracking the Kiln!

Today I took some new up-to-date photos and listed some of my small white bird bowls here in my Folksy and Etsy shops. Hope you like them!

Small Bird Bowls

First Bisque Firing

Some little oxide/slip test tiles drying ready for the first bisque.

A few weeks ago I did my first bisque fire in my new kiln! What a big day. Although it actually it took three days…

DAY ONE:

Packing the kiln wasn’t as easy as it should have been. If I had to make a complaint about my (otherwise lovely!) new kiln, it would be the placing of the thermocouple.

The thermocouple is the device that records the temperature inside the kiln. It sticks out beyond the inside kiln wall (which is normal) but for some reason it’s been placed quite low down (where ‘logic’ would suggest it should be placed at least a third or half way up). Well anyway, the really annoying thing is the positioning is in EXACTLY the most inconvenient place for putting shelves!

Kiln shelves or ‘batts’ are supposed to be positioned away from the thermocouple – at least 2.5 cm above or below - because if placed too close they can damage it when they shrink and expand. Shelves also interfere with the temperature reading because they retain cold and heat more than their surroundings.

Shelf supports and three of the four shelves packed. The offending thermocouple can be seen in the top right photo.

Now here’s the thing. The shelf supports I bought as a ‘kiln set’ come in only two sizes: one short and one a bit taller. They can be stacked on top of each other to get different heights between shelves. So far so good. I currently have only four shelves (one of which is slightly thinner than the others!) and it was recommended to me not to exceed four because of the sheer weight of stuff in a firing. Shelves also have to be placed in a way to give pots enough room 'above their heads' so to speak. Also, for my first bisque I only had enough pots to just fill a kiln: and most of these were fairly similar heights...

Anyway, long story short and taking into account all these little variables (not to mention how heavy and awkward everything is!), let’s just say that Maths, Physics and the Universe were against me: because WHICHEVER combination I tried I could not get my first shelf packed without that infuriating thermocouple getting in the way! Either I had to make a tiny, low shelf at the bottom that could only take flat pieces (which would leave half the kiln empty above the top shelf) or I had to make a ‘huge’ gap on the bottom shelf that teetered on a long column of supports.

In the end I packed the kiln TWICE in two totally different ways, eventually plumping for the ‘huge teetering’ design - even though it made me feel really nervous because of all the weight I had to stack on top. I can only conclude that manufacturers never use the stuff they make…

DAY TWO:

I can tell you that I was way too tired to turn the thing on after all that! So I just closed the lid and decided to get up first thing next day to do the firing. Being a brand new kiln, it’s better to kiln-sit a first bisque to see how it behaves; which is why I decided to fire during the daytime (rather than put the kiln on overnight for a cheaper electricity rate). You can imagine that most of the day was spent popping in and out of the ‘kiln room’ to check the temperature and see if I’d programmed the controller properly.

Bungs and temperature on control panel (not long after end of firing).

At around 500ºC to 600ºC is the usual time for ‘putting in the bungs’. There are three holes in my kiln: two are vents and the third is a chimney (which I don’t use). These holes let out the steam generated from the last remaining bits of water being burnt off from inside the pots.

My kiln came with two ceramic bungs to plug up the holes, but I had to make a third one from an old piece of firebrick to block the chimney vent. I picked up a tip off the internet (or read it somewhere) that placing a mirror over a vent will help you to check if all the moisture has gone. Well I did this and I was still getting LOADS of condensation even after 700ºC.

Maybe this was because one of the shelves was new and hadn’t been ‘first fired’ yet. Or maybe there was just loads of moisture in the pots or generally in the kiln room (it had rained forever in the weeks beforehand). As this was my first bisque I really didn’t want to risk pots exploding everywhere so I waited until 770ºC when there was absolutely no steam at all before I put in all the bungs.

For anyone interested, my firing schedule was as follows:

First Ramp: 100ºC/hour to top temp 500ºC

Second Ramp: 200ºC/hour to top temp 900ºC

Third Ramp: 100ºC/hour to top temp 1000ºC

End

In other words I fired up to 1000ºC in 8 hours. Started at 7am and ended (everything switched off) by 3pm.

DAY THREE:

I thought I would be nervous, impatient or over-excited waiting for the kiln to cool. But by the third day I was pretty blasé about the whole thing: probably because I felt exhausted! Also I suppose I knew there was nothing I could do about it but wait and see.

I left the kiln to cool for exactly 24 hours: so at 3pm I checked the temperature. It was 60ºC - which is easily cool enough to risk cracking the kiln!  So I opened the lid…

Open sesame - top shelf of bisque pots.

And success! The top shelf looked perfect. All the little pink pots looked back up at me, all intact, and all looking like they were supposed to look. There was a bit of a crack in the kiln lid however and some kiln brick had dusted down onto one of my pots. This may prove annoying in the future come glaze firing…however, otherwise all looked well.

I emptied the kiln in stages, letting each shelf of pots cool for about an hour in-between, as they were still pretty hot the further down I went. I was also feeling a bit tired and wanted to unload carefully in case I dropped anything or did my back in leaning over the kiln! So by the time I had everything out it was getting dark.

I’m happy to say ALL my pots and every single piece I put in there (58 pieces in total) came out looking and feeling perfect – no blowouts or breakages at all – which is excellent news. Since then I’ve been glazing them too and they’ve all been soaking up the glazes properly. I’ve yet to see the results of a glaze firing, but all in all I’m very happy with my first bisque. And aside from the ridiculously annoying thermocouple and that little crack appearing, I’m really pleased with my kiln so far too.

Lists and End of Year Review...

At the beginning of 2012 I made a list of things I wanted to do. These included new designs I wanted to make and equipment I wanted to add to the studio. And for once I’ve actually managed to cross off all the items on the list! This is unheard of: usually at the end of the year I have to transfer half the items from the unfinished ‘to do’ list over onto the following year. So 2012 has been a very productive year for me!

Two major items on the list this year were a) fix the studio roof and b) install a kiln. Both took much longer than expected and proved very disruptive: but ultimately worth it in the end. My studio has been transformed and it’s made such a difference to how I work. As for the kiln: well I’ve only just squeezed that into the last closing minutes of the year. It was finally plugged into the electrics last week and switched on. As far as I know it’s ready to go (all the lights are working and nothing exploded thankfully) but I still need to do a ‘first firing’…

Of course once you cross off one thing on the list, new things spring up in its place. So here’s my current mini sub-list for the last few remaining days of the year:

1)   Read the manual for the kiln controller (not as easy as it sounds).

2)   Program the controller for a ‘first firing’ (still not as easy as it sounds).

3)   Load the kiln with furniture only (ie; shelves and supports, no ware) leaving bungs out to ‘first fire’ the kiln. (This is done to oxidise the brand new kiln interior and also to dry out the batts.)

4)   Cross fingers and hope it all works…

5)   Shout yippee if it does and apply batt wash to kiln shelves.

6)   In the meantime continue making pots ready for a first bisque firing (planned for sometime in January).

7)   Oh yes, and have Christmas day in there somewhere!

I’ve already started my new list for 2013. Next year I’m looking forward to getting to grips with firing my new kiln and developing my own range of glazes. And of course I’d like to make some new designs again too. No rest for the wicked.

Happy Holidays!