Wednesday 8 October 2014

Post 176 Latest bisque firing

I powered up the furnace this week and now have some work in front of me.
The haul came to 18 pots.

You wouldn't know it but there is a mix of clays here or at least exact formulations. My supplier of the YG clay decided to change the coulourant from a yellow iron oxide to the red. While the raw clay has a different colour (pink rather than yellow) the bisque is the same and the finished vitrified ceramic should also be a similar buff colour. I'm hoping that the RIO colourant does not have the same fluxing effect and pot breakage that came with it in the RGH product when the formulation colourant changed there.



I have three of my new bowed wall rectangular pots, with varying degrees of rounded to sharp corners and three of a new oval with convex walls. There are also two nice little semi cascade pots in there and then a buch of new shohins. All the little loose pieces of clay in the pots are props to be used in the glaze firing. The depth of field effect in the photo is courtesy the gaussian blur filter in photoshop; neat.

In a couple of weeks I'm booked for a pot making demo at one of our local bonsai associations and was keen to be able to take a few pots along. I also wanted a pot I can show in the raw, bisque and finished state to show how it changes. I'm planning on making one of the ovals so will now be set for each stage.

The pots can to a degree be stacked in the bisque firing that is not possible in glaze firing so these pots probably represent two glaze firings coming up. My latest glaze test - number 9 in the series - has produced some nice new brown variants that I'm keen to try out.

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