overlap

 Getting pots made, bisque fired and ready to wax and start glazing can be a challenge at any time of the year, but in February those challenges come front and center for both of us.
 We are unloading a bisque kiln today for what I hope is the last of the pottery needed to fill the kiln.
I find it easier to have a ready made stock for some items that can be just pulled from to fill those spaces between pots.
During the year as we make multiple pieces that is easy to do. This time of year when we have just geared back up it seems I am hunting for those pots.
I need paper at hand to make or add to the list of what is needed now and for the year.
I make a list for me and one for Mark.
More of these and Oh, yea, we are out of those...
And always mugs, mugs and more mugs.

You can see those berry bowls and batter bowls are being made. 

  

 This is our trusty planning shelf that I have posted a time or two. One of these planned is one shelf of pots for the gas kiln.
You can see that I need more pots to fill out the shelf. Those should be hot out of the bisque today.

All in all we are moving along as we watched the weather for a good firing day. It looks as if we have a good window of opportunity before the next round of winter comes our way.

Our plan, don't laugh, is to load Sunday and fire Monday.
Or load Monday and fire Tuesday.
Wednesday looks like a great cool down day to me.

I was looking through some pictures from 2010 and we had a snow in February of that year right around the 13th.

Best get moving, I just heard Mark heading out the door and I need to be close behind him.
Cheers,
M

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

As most of you know we bought a new kiln at the end of last year.
We ditched, sold off, our old kilns.
There is a learning curve with anything new.
When we added a kitchen to our house a few years back I went from an electric stove top to gas.
It was and still is a learning curve.
I still can not just put a pot of something on low and walk away.
My gas cook top knows no low.
So I have learned to cook with gas and place anything I don't want burned in the oven to cook away on a lower temperature.
The new kiln:
Is not quite as wide as the old one.
Has thermocouples that stick out and have to be loaded around.
It works better with staggered shelves.
I could reach the bottom of the old ones.
This one works best with tall - 9 inches - at the bottom.
We blew up two pots last week.
I could place the old ones on a very low setting for 3-6 hours and let them dry out the pots before we fired the next day.

So when these bad boys were going in we decided to make a preheat for the kiln.
User 6, one ramp 50 degrees an hour to 175 degrees and hold 4 hours.
It ramped to about 189-190 and we turned it off and just let the heat vent through the kiln to dry out the pots.
Hours later we did it again.
Then we turned it on last night to fire and programed with a preheat and hold time.

Not real trusting, but when you make 18-19 inch pots and you need to fire it gets time expensive to have to make, dry and fire them again.

a tool we can not do without- do you have those? This board holds the same amount as our shelves and is our "planning" board.

Fingers crossed that this does the trick for us.
This kiln seems to fire hotter- as you can see since it did not hold at 175 but keep going up past that.
We did the same with our smaller, shorter kiln and it held at 178 through the whole cycle.
learning curve.
Some days I think I am going to just open a cookie business...

And about the computer and monitor.
They are once again talking to one another. We unplugged the monitor and hooked it to the netbook. Then when it was plugged back in to the computer it worked.
I guess these two needed a break.
Like all things too much together time.
We are glazing fools today.
Cheers!
M

Rolling up hill

I had a bisque cooking in the lower room where I also wax pots and get things ready to glaze.
Rather then stand in there with the fumes going I thought I would make some small mugs.
I hit about 15 and then moved over to creamers- only 5 of those before noon.
The bisque finished up in time for me to air out, shut things up and use that heat to keep the room warm.
Then it was on to waxing pots for glaze.
Today's list includes unloading bisque, handling mugs and waxing.
Looks like I have a plan in front of me.

But first, a walk anyone?

Mark has been pulled away from his wheel more then he would like this year, but he did get some vases made for the crown.

I am thinking hard, don't laugh, about which glazes to use in this gas firing.
This will be firing number two for the new kiln and we will be working out more kinks.
We did make a fair number of seconds with the first fire and I hope we can make this load more winners than losers.

After some GREAT weather the wind blowing cold sneaked back in yesterday, but there was plentiful sunshine.
I am trying to figure out how to box some sunshine up and send it to Hollis up in Cape Cod.
It keeps leaking out of the boxes and I can't get in a bottle.
I'll  have to keep working on that.
Make it a good day!
M

It's a plan!

When we get ready to fire the big kiln I have a board we made for the first kiln load back in 1982.
The board is the same size as our kiln shelves.
All I need to do is fill the board. Unload it onto our carts.
Then I take each piece and examine it for small rough spots, these I sand off, then I wax the pots using hot wax and place it back on the cart for glazing.
The kiln holds 19 to 20 shelves of pots.
We then wheel the carts, which hold the pots, up to the big room along with the glazes and get busy.
The last load was planned Tuesday, while bisque was firing, we then started glazing on Wednesday and we finished on Saturday.
The shelves are clean and tomorrow it will take us about 5 hours to load and brick up the door.

Mark will fire while I start galzing tiles.
Good thing we took that trip away.......





Pots waiting to go in the kiln.

How to make it rain

Take one building add paint.

The painters will be back next week when the sun comes back.

Meanwhile pots are being made and are drying .
Bisque kilns are firing.
Rain is good, Right?

Is production a dirty word?

In the past few weeks I have had a mind snap.

Snap! I could feel it.

My mind clicked out of the stress of last year and begun to simmer or settle down enough to throw pots again.

I was having trouble staying at the wheel and I believe it was just all the stress of last year's fire and other things as well.....

Then one day- snap it was if I could really think again.

And since then I have been in the mode of making pots.

On the wheel and off.

I try to throw in the mornings and after lunch.

Then I switch over to the slab roller to roll out clay for tray's and bread bowls.

It seems to be working for me.

So here is some of last weeks work.

Mark was on vases, casseroles,large spoon crocks and mugs.

I was on tumblers, jars, cruets, small crocks, trays and bread bowls.

This week I will add in some time for loading up the bisque kiln and getting pots through for another glaze firing.

So about production.

We both trained as production throwers.

We weigh out our clay, knowing what we are going to make.

We make multiple items, using a pointer for size.

We try to hit the shape over and over.

Then there are items which we don't do this with.

Those items can take on their own shape and be played with.

I still find some comfort in throwing production. It is like an old friend who allows me to just hang out.

I also find through production a new item will start to form in my mind.

What if.......

Comfort in clay,

Focus and stability.

Just a quick firing

We loaded up the electric kiln on Tuesday for a quick bisque firing yesterday.

Well- we noted that the kiln was only 800 degrees by 5:30-

We thought did we do all the turn ups?
Isn't it usually 1,000 to 1200 degrees by now- yes we thought.

Now for some paper and a pencil- we never track the eclectic kiln any more.

We noticed we were only making 140 degrees an hour.

Humm everything is on high let's push it on.

7 pm still climbing slow as molasses.

8 pm still only 140 degrees an hour.

10 pm and we have slowed to 115 degrees an hour-

at 11:30 we finally hit 1700 degrees.

We look up charts on line and fingered this was a hot cone 08.

We usually take the kiln to 1750-1756

So today along with concentrating on the upcoming wedding, we will be unloading and taking a look at reasons why the kiln decided to crawl to the finish line.

We just rebuilt this kiln last June-July- In fact just finished it a week or so before the studio fire.

So it has new wiring and has been working just fine-

something loose maybe?

Or my sister tells me Mecery is in retrograde........