Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Tons of Hope


I remember when clay wasn't a big problem or a big expense. But in the past few years I've gone through clay that won't gas out in a bisque firing ( leaving me with bubbled glaze surfaces), clay of a too fine mesh (it cracks in a pot's crevices), and clay that stinks.

 So now I'm now buying three different clays to accommodate what I used to do with one good clay. And still I'm not sure that I will have decreased the amount of loss I've been suffering these past few years of firings. 

But the fact that I've gone to the trouble of getting new clay in the shop at least shows that I've got hope.

4 comments:

  1. there is always hope.... we hold out for hope.
    we hope it is better, we hope it works, we hope someone will like it, we hope someone will buy, we hope we can pay our bills, we hope we can laugh, we hope we don't cry... there is always hope.

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  2. Good luck with the clay. At least you don't have to go out to the clay pit with a shovel every morning.

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  3. Out of curiosity, what clay were you having the bubbled glaze problem with? We've been dealing with that with our #553 from Standard.

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  4. Hi Charles,

    The bubbling glaze problem occurred with Miller 850 -- sold as Laguna WC627, and mixed in the Ohio plant.

    And, no, no amount of adjusting the firing(s) helped. A longer bisque made no difference. A faster cooldown didn't help (nobody cools down faster than I do).

    From what I've been given to understand, it has been a problem with a ball clay -- NOT OM4 -- that is mined in Kentucky.

    I'm hoping the problem has been solved because I just got a new ton of the stuff in yesterday.

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