Today I biscuit fired all the work that will go through its first firing. A bit of a stressful bisque really - and very slow. There's a real range of clays in there, from smectitic Fen clays (like the Buttery clay), high silica Leicestershire glacial clays and Malvern Carboniferous era ball clays. Some of these are carbonaceous too, but the most problematic is the green clay. It's very fine, beautifully plastic, but not sticky, but very prone to bloating in the bisque as the sulphur that is bonded to its iron content burns out. It is already dense at 1000C so I did a long soak at 700 - 800C in strong oxidation. Fingers crossed.
Packing Thursday, firing Friday.
Oh now how sweet looking is that! Very exciting. Looking forward to seeing what new excitiing pots you will have at Hatfield.
ReplyDeleteThanks Hannah. See you at Hatfield. Pray for sun.
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