Stomy night

We had a severe thunderstorm last night, and knocked down the tree.   During the wind and downpour, I went out to close the umbrella on the patio, and noticed the tree laying there. As we saw it from the outside, it landed on our cars. My thought, not the front hood of van again, a week before the show...  I slowly pruned the branches and releasing the cars from them, and finally be able to the pull back.  We are surprised to learn there aren't even any scratches on both cars. It took us three hours to clear around the parking space, and decided to end the day. We need to hire some professional. But, in all we are very lucky, the tree does not damage anything. If it came down 10 inches in left or right, it was the different story.



I had another good firing and there were no seconds, two in rows.

Clay delivered

I got 2150lb of clay delivered today, and howled them up to 4th floor.  Quite an exercise.  I am all set for the clay for the rest of year.  Studio is cramped with the clays .  Hard to find the floor space.  I need more space!



Kiln is loaded for the fourth time in this month. It is expected 80+°F next week, so I decided to push in this one tomorrow.

I mailed my show schedule postcards and emails yesterday (my show schedule is here), and sanding and pricing, painting the booth back drops and cleaning shelves next week.  I found and ordered the similar plastic shelves, have not received them yet, hopefully this will be the good replacement.  I was thinking to build nice wood shelves, but the weight to the van makes me think otherwise. 12-14 plastic storage bins worth of  pottery and 24 wood shelves might be too much for my minivan.

Beef stew

Home smelled really good when I came home today.  Beef stew in a casserole dish.  I chopped onions, carrots, ｃelery, and tossed them with a cube of beef, white wine, can tomato and beef consomme, cumin, bay leaves, and water in the casserole dish.  I put it into the 325°F oven.  Actually I was not sure about the meat not browned, so I browned some, and some uncooked.  The casserole dish sit in the oven for 6 hours. When I came home, I added some potatoes for another hour, and added corn starch mixed in the water at the end.  It was pretty good, better than the pressure cooker cooked.  Meat is very tender, fall apart by spoon! I thought the meat not browned more tender.  This is the easiest stew ever made.  I will do it again.   I made this casserole dish 11 years ago. 



These are from the lase firing.  Kiln is loaded today.

[caption id="attachment_1542" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Teapot 3 Fired."][/caption]

Before and after

I fired the kiln on Friday.  It was very claim warm day (80°F outside) until toward  the  end of the firing (about 2000°F), then the rainstorm came with gusts from the south.  The winds started sucking air out from the kiln, and the oxyprobe reading hit zero.  I needed to lowered the gas pressure while closing the damper, and close the windows at the studio.  It heated up the studio very quickly, close to 100°F.  It lasted about 30 minutes, and became less windy so I could open the windows.  I opened the kiln today, and it was another good firing. I guess the oxidation at the later stage of the firing did not affect the result.

Here is before and after pictures.  Glazes do not have the same color before and after firing.  Glaze is a glass structure over the clay, and its color is refection of the metal particle inside the glass, and varies by the thickness of the glaze application.  The thickness is hard to measure and observe.   Redish color is from the red iron oxide.



These are new saggars with fireclay.  It shows different colors on outside, tan and white, that reflect reduction and oxidation. However, I got good reduction inside the saggar as well as the bowls stored inside.

Saggar and Reduction

[Saggar firing is a technique for the firing of pottery.  Saggars are ceramic, boxlike containers which can be used to enclose or protect ware in kilns. Traditionally saggars were made primarily from fireclay. Saggars have been used to protect, or safeguard, ware from open flame, smoke, gases and kiln debris: the name is a contraction of "safeguard". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

I have four to five firing done with the saggar placed at the oxidation spot, and got the good reduction constantly.  The best result was achieved when the sagger was flipped over.  I tried to placing the plate as a cover, with different gaps, that was not satisfactory.



I used the white stoneware body for the sagger, and it started to show a sign of the bloating. This clay is not meant to be the saggar and repeated firing.  I made new saggars, with mixture of roughly 50% fireclay and 50% white stoneware. I hope this will last longer.



With the saggar, I was able to fire a relatively small piece related to the shelf space.  I still like getting two small pieces rather than getting two seconds.  Now I am getting close to 90-95% of good pottery out of the kiln.  I am almost done throwing for now, and am ready to fire the kiln 2-3 times in next two weeks. Then I am ready for the first three shows.