Sunday, May 3, 2009

What do you do when the Firing goes bad?


High expectations and a self imposed time frame did not help in this firing that has gone wrong...drastically wrong! A good customer has ask for some custom items from my shop...whoopee, jump for joy...I love special requests! Should go smoothly but as you can see in the photo the glaze burned out in the kiln. Have no idea why...but I am not one to give up.

Sometimes you can salvage work by firing again, adding a different glaze and firing a third time. After a fourth firing and three different glaze applications I was able to get pendants that I can use for myself. But it is back to the clay,rolling pin and start all over for the custom items. But what do I do about the glaze that did not work? I guess its time for a new batch to be mixed.

I will dump this in with another small batch that lost its integrity and test a tile to see what I get. Sometimes the prettiest glazes are those mixed just this way! Only, you can never repeat the mix. Such is the way of the glaze god.

2 comments:

  1. that might not have been what the customer was looking for but I think they turned out beautifully I LOVE that deep blue - and will begin work on your "surprise" piece later this week!

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  2. What you can not see in the photo 'cause it is so small is the burned out fire scale through out each piece. Not the bright rainbow effect I had hoped for.

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