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Sunday, 27 January 2013

All melted

Glad to see the snow and ice go but not quite as chuffed to see my lovely plastic Devonian freshwater deposited clays come out of the kiln like this.....
Cone ten is clearly pushing them too far - and thus continues my poor success in finding local clays that can withstand a temperature high enough to allow a glaze to be fired on them. Strangely clay 3, which was the black one that bloated severely and seemed very dense at 1000C, has actually done the best and could probably be used as a slip. Clay 6 looks unpleasantly like cat shit and the others are puddles of varying volcanicity. Time for some lateral thinking in what I am actually going to be able to make.
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2 comments:

  1. Anna28 January 2013 at 01:46

    some interesting results - would you have expected a clay to do better at the higher temp?

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    Replies
    1. matthew28 January 2013 at 07:58

      I was hoping that they might - some were quite pale (lowish in iron) and they were deposited in fresh water so should have low/no calcium (which makes clays melt). My experience so far suggests that clays that are refractory enough to withstand a stoneware firing are (sadly for potters) rather rare. Most seem to melt at this temp.

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