kilnopening21310.mpg

[Gracepots]

Nice load. Are these glaze recipes in the book you mentioned?

[jmg1957]

well done..............

[pensandcalls]

Thanks, it means a lot!

[DirtKickerStudio]

Hi Tom, Nice kiln opening. Your sapphire blue looks a little like Coyote's Pam's Green. I love it. A shame about the casserole. Possible stress crack. Was the pot a little on the dry side during trimming?

[pensandcalls]

Yea, the S crack was disappointing. I'm sure it was a stress crack. I never thought about it being too dry during trimming. Hmmmm. I usually trim them before they get very hard but with that large diameter, I might have waited longer. Don't remember, though. I guess that would put some stresses in it. I'll press the crap out of the next one and wrap it up so it takes a couple of weeks to stabilize and see how it goes. Oh, well the next one will be better anyway. It always is. :o)

[pensandcalls]

Thanks for the encouragement!

[PotteryGarage]

I have to chime in and say that for a failed blue it's a really nice green! I wish my failures turned out that nicely.

Too bad about the cracks in the casserole. I can see the bottom crack coming from a lack of compression, but the side? Does the clay seem thinner there than the rest of the wall? What clay body was it? I'm finding that B-mix is becoming a problem that way.

[pensandcalls]

Yea, the bottom 's' crack is all too familiar. I compressed the heck out of it and even used a 'strong arm' gadget I made to make sure the bottom was even. Used a wet box too. Next time, I'm wrapping it in plastic for a couple of weeks like some do. Everyone has their own 'proven' method of preventing 'S' cracks but I've tried about all of them.

I am using a Standard 140 clay right now.

Thanks for the comments!

[Sandyclay2204]

Hey Tom, great kiln opening!!! I know that you were shooting for bluer, but these are still beautiful!!! I love 'em. Now you've learned how to get to this color. Always learning as Simon would say.

[pensandcalls]

Thanks, appreciate it! The blend of blue and green with the brown flowing down does look pretty cool. Don't know why they call it a snot green.

[ThatLynnGirl]

Thanks so much for sharing, and especially the info on the cones too, so we can all learn from it!! Overfiring didn't hurt your colors much!! Still super glossy and rich.

[pensandcalls]

Thanks! Yea, my glazes are very forgiving, thank heavens!  It's just this blue is really picky. I'm running my kiln through a few test cycles just loaded with my mistakes and some cones to see if I can find the correct firing schedule keeping my 'holds' at peak, which are very important.

[SharJoyC]

I agree, nice glaze combo! ... and green is my fav! Well done!

[pensandcalls]

Thanks!!!!

[parrotpotterstudio]

Well done! I like that glaze combination, even if it is green/blue instead of all blue!

[pensandcalls]

thanks, Dan. they call the green 'snot green' but I kinda like it.

[parrotpotterstudio]

@pensandcalls I guess it's snot that bad.

[pensandcalls]

Snot as bad as it could have been........

[ChumleyWhiplash]

Yay! kiln opening!!! the hardest part is waiting those last couple of hundred degrees, to where you can pull them out without cooking your fingers! what a pretty glaze on that teapot - saw insturctions for a test tie - do it square, and glaze the whole face, then half, then a third so you get three depths of glaze on one tile. THat waterfall brown and the saphire is a lovely combination!

[pensandcalls]

Thanks! From my investigating on clayart, it sounds like the blue should only be fired to a cone 5 or a little more, so I guess I risk another kiln load to find the sweet spot! what the heck, it's only mud!