Fat White Chawan

This glaze is an opaque matt white glaze but I think I'm going to have to rename it "Fat White." I love the thickness of the glaze and the orange peel effect is what I've been searching for for a long long time. The best thing about this glaze is that it is dependable with the same results every time.
I used wax resist in the carved recessed areas of the tea bowl and then applied a thick coat of the "Fat White" to the interior and exterior of the bowl.
To give the bowl an extra accent I carved through the glaze with a pin tool. The black is a result from the post reduction process.

My Favorite Chawan

I knew when I pulled this chawan from the raku kiln that this one was definately my Favorite to date.
First of all I have been searching for years for a "fat white" glaze that would crackle and also produce an "orange peel" effect.
Secondly, I've been searching longer for a dependable red. I got lucky this past weekend and produced some of my best tea bowls to date. I'll post some of the others on my website jeffguin.com

Ok! This post is for Joe since he wanted to see the fired results of this red iron oxide wash over my Matt White Opaque Raku glaze.
I was hoping this would turn out a light red rust color. Well, it turned out brown. It still has potential the way it was fired in this photo but I think I'll do another test but use a more diluted form of the wash. I applied this pretty thick and I think a thinner solution of the iron wash will produce a "nicer" result.

Glaze Testing Again

More glaze testing. This chawan has a base coat of a matt opaque white on the interior and exterior. I then mixed up a red iron oxide wash and applied that over the white glaze. Will raku fire this in my gas kiln and if I'm happy with the results will try it in my wood-fired raku kiln.

Raku Fired Chawan

Raku fired chawan glazed with a gloss opaque white glaze. I applied a red iron oxide wash over the bisqued bowl and then applied the glaze but my oxide wash must have been a little thin as it did not come through the withe opaque glaze like I had hoped. Will try the wash again, both under and over the glaze.

Kodai

Hand carved foot ring or kodai. I carved this foot ring with one of the tools I made out of a piece of flat banding steel.

Opaque Gloss White Raku Glaze

Here is a close up of the opaque gloss white glaze
pictured below. I like the glaze and will retest it with some brush strokes of red iron wash, under and over the glaze. Looks like it has lots of potential. I like the pinholing.
As is, the glaze doesn't appear to crawl so I am going to add some magnesium carbonate to the base and see what happens.

Raku Fired Tea Bowl

I finally was able to fire some tea bowls in the raku kiln this past weekend. Had several glazes to test and wasn't able to fire them all because I ran out of gas (not energy, propane). And, it was dangerously too windy to fire up the kiln yesterday.
Anyway, out of the pieces I did fire this is my favorite.
It is just a plain opaque gloss white glaze inside and out. The exterior was heavily textured and I used a metal rib to scrape off the glaze and even used a piece of sandpaper to clean it up a bit more.
The black, of course, was bare clay and recieved its color from post reduction in a can of sawdust.
I think this glaze has a lot of potential but it is a gloss white. I also have another similar bowl to fire that has been glazed in a matt white. Will post a photo of that when it is fired.
I also had a few failures, but all in all it was a pretty successful weekend.

Glaze Testing

Got a lot done in the studio yesterday. Started my bisque kiln bright and early with a load of torso sculptures that I made last year. While that was firing I decided to test some new raku glazes.

Thought I'd post them on my blog just in case I misplaced my notes.

Back left has a black underglaze and a gloss red on the exterior. The interior was glazed with Soldner's Clear Crackle Raku glaze.

Right Rear: Interior and exterior glazed with an opaque glosse white. This was a heavily textured tea bowl on the exterior so applied a heavy coat of the white and then used a metal rib to scrap away the top layer of glaze. In post reduction I am hoping the black will create a nice effect on the unglazed parts of the exterior.

Left front: Interior glazed with Soldner's Clear Crackle Raku. This was also textured on the exterior so I applied a gloss red and used the metal rib to scrape the high areas clean of glaze.

Center: This is a real "experimental" glaze. This is a borax and feldspar glaze with 15% magnesium carbonate added to create a crawling effect. The glaze brushed on terribly because of the Borax I think but I got a heavy coat on it. The interior is an opaque gloss white.

Right Front: opaque gloss white on the interior. Three brush coats on the exterior and then I brushed 3 coats of Amaco Arroyo Black glaze on top of that.

It was way to damn windy to fire up the raku kiln yesterday so I'll have to wait to fire these up. Maybe today. Stay tuned.

New Addition to the Studio

Newest addition to my studio, a Shimpo RK-Whisper potter's wheel. Actually it is the first store-bought wheel I've owned. I've made my other two wheels, my favorite sitting right next to the Shimpo.

It is a Korean or Onggi style kick wheel made out of about 50 board feet of cherry wood. For a touch of class I added one layer of walnut on the bottom half.

The first wheel I made is a kick wheel with a motor assist.

I also have a stand-up treadle wheel that was given to me. This wheel was made by artist Harvy Littleton sometime during the 1950s.

New Coffee Mug

Just received this coffee mug in the mail yesterday. I traded some albany slip for it. It is made by Wisconsin potter Paul Boland. Paul is on Face book and he and his wife Amanda have an etsy page.
http://www.etsy.com/people/Haywainpottery

Raku Red

This is about the only thing I have accomplished the past month. I've been working too many overtime hours at my paying job and haven't been able to fire anything, but this has a lot of potential.
It is actually a low-fire commercial red glaze that is dinnerware safe. I brushed two coats of the red on the tea bowl and then brushed a layer of commercial low-fire black over the red.
What I would like to experiment with is adding an opacifier and some magnesium carbonate to this red glaze. I'm hoping to tone-down the translucency a bit with zircopax and create some crawling with the magnesium carbonate. The end result, I hope, will look like a high-fire crawling shino. Will mix up some test glazes this week and will raku fire some more tea bowls onnext Saturday, weather permitting.

New Plan

New plan. I had originally planned on installing a Skutt electric kiln in my studio but changed my mind when I found out how much it would cost to run the 240V electric into the room.
I had this old Cress electric in the basement but it needed a new lid and new elements. I think I'm going to re-build this kiln but make it smaller, but that is another project. Back to the new plan.
The new plan is the Cress is being moved out and the Skutt is coming down stairs. I have 240V already wired and all I need to do is take the cone sitter out of the Cress and install it into the skutt.

Moldy Porcelain

Ok! So I mixed up a bunch of reclaimed porcelain and bagged it all up and set it in a sunny corner of my studio. I probably should have put it in a covered container because now all my bags of porcelain have been attacked by this lovely green colored mold that smells AWFUL!
Any ideas about killing this lovely green colored mold? I was thinking about trying some bleach. Thought that should do it but Have no idea how much to use.
Anybody out there have any ideas?

New Addition to the Studio

Newest addition to the studio. Looks a little rough on the outside but it only cost 50 dollars and I got a lot of nice kiln shelves and boxes and boxes of all kinds of kiln furniture. The inside is in great shape and the only thing I need to do is replace the kiln sitter tube assembly. I need the tube, the firing gauge and the cone supports but I have an old kiln in the basement that I can scavange these parts from.
I plan on installing cement board in the corner and then I need to have a 240V line run to that part of the studio.

Torso Lamp

With a little help from photoshop I have come up with what the finished product is going to look like. I think it is going to make a fantastic lamp.

I think I am going to go with a jet black gloss glaze. Not sure about the lamp shade yet. We'll have to see what kind of shade I can find in La Crosse. My mother said this was a silly idea and said "who is going to want a lmap like that?" Well, believe it or not I've already had two people say they're interested in it. So HA!

Torso Sculpture

Started a new project a few days ago and things are going well. I wanted to make a torso sculpture in the round just to see if I could do it. I can do it. I'm not sure what made me think of it but from the start I had planned on making a table lamp out of this sculpture. We'll see if it makes it through the firings and then I'll buy the lamp shade.

Oh! Still working on the kiln. I ordered some ITC and a couple of venturi burner/mixer pins from Laguna Clay last week. Should have been here by now. Once I get that stuff I'll have a propane tank delivered and get the gas works hooked up. Getting there but going too slow for me.

Still At It.

I'm not sure the "how or why" of it but there were some small gaps between the soft brick on the interior of this kiln. I am thinking that it has been this way since the original owner built the kiln. There was some fiber in a few of the gaps but I pulled it out and decided to plug all the gaps with new fiber. I cut 1 inch fiber into 2-1/2 inch strips and then kind of peeled the fiber apart into thinner pieces. I then used a plastic flexible putty knife to tuck the fiber into the gaps. Worked real well but was hard on the knees.

My friend Darrel also ran the copper gas line for me, about 50 feet of 1/2 copper and buried it about a foot deep. Next step is to order the 120 pound propane tank and set that in place. Still at it but getting closer.

Insulation

I had a bunch of fiber from old raku kilns so I used it up. This is a well insulated roof. On the top of the arch brick I laid down an inch layer of fiber. Then I laid down two rows of 3-inch soft brick around the edges. I then leveled it off with crushed pieces of insulated fire brick. And finally, on top of that to level it all off I put down another inch layer of fiber. To finish it off I will cover it with metal.

Burner Pins

HELP!
I need to find two of these GACO burner/mixer pins for my venturi burners. I can find them for 1/2 base but I need 3/4-inch screw in base. Can any of my friends/readers out ther point me in some possible directions on where to find them.
Thanks.