Local materials

I have been intrigued by the idea of making some pots from local materials. Kentucky has long been wealthy in minerals but that wealth is usually in the form of coal. I don't have any use for coal itself but I plan to use one of its byproducts.
Central Kentucky presents somewhat of a challenge for a "Local" pot. We have lots of some materials but a lack of others.

What we have.
Here in Central Kentucky we have limestone, and lots of it. Along with those deposits we find marls and other earthenware clays. We have shales. We also have Fly ash from burnt coal. We have some small sources of wood ash and if you have a place to burn things, you can no doubt source endless agricultural byproducts for making ashes of various types. There are deposits of silica sand not too far away. A bit further is an area rich in clays once used to make fire bricks.

What we lack.
All types of igneous rocks. Granite, rhyolite, nepheline syenite.
White clays. There is supposedly some kaolin in Hart county but that is about 4 hours by car. Not too local either huh?

Looks pretty limiting for the high fire potter but it is a challenge that I would like to attempt.
I have good sources for ash, earthenwares, and limestone. The major thing I need is a source for high fire clay. I guess since that will be the base which all pots are built on it should be the main focus of my prospecting. Time to check up on a few leads I guess.

On a related note, I bought a new book off Ebay and recently had reason to actually read it. I ran across a potter who had lots of wood ash on hand. I bought a couple of buckets from her and started reading "Ash Glazes" by Phil Rogers.

If I haven't said it before, I LOVE his work.

I'm in the process of Washing the ash right now. It is a mixture of hard and softwood ash so I imagine it will make a celadon type glaze when mixed with whiter types of clay. It will be fun to experiment with.

I also have several hundred pounds of earthen ware from a local construction site that I will be using with the ash. Not sure of the iron content but it fires with similar results to redart and that would put the iron at about 7%. It won't be making any white glazes with that clay but it could be used to source iron for a celadon if I can find another low iron clay locally.

My next prospecting adventure will be to the Tyrone power station in search of Fly ash. I contacted the local electric utility and they pointed me towards the local coal burning power station. Fly ash is the portion of coal left after burning that is light enough to be carried away on the draft of the furnace. They have to filter the stuff out of their exhause so they should have TONS on hand. I hope that it will require little to no milling for use. Once again though it usually has pretty high iron content (about 10%) so its use will be limited.

I'd love to hear from anyone interested in this idea as I'm sure there are materials that I have not considered.

New year

The new year has me invigorated. Lots of energy for new and old projects.
This blog is one of the old projects that has fallen by the wayside and needs my attention.

I have actually been making pots since the last post. Here are some pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29665788@N04/sets/72157610906937840/

I have continued my experiments with glaze on glaze. I have been using several combinations and here are my favorites.

Mashiko kaki fake / wax resist / Temple white

Kaki
kona f4 spar (soda) 31.2
talc 5.2
wollastonite 6.5
bone ash 0.5
epk 11.4
om4 11.4
silica 26.8
red iron oxide 6.4
titanium 0.5
manganese 0.2

I leave the manganese out. I found this glaze posted on clayart and it was attributed to John Reeve.

Temple white
custer feldspar 35.7
whiting 2.5
dolomite 19.1
epk 23.5
silica 19.1

This glaze is a favorite of mine. It tends to mute over and under glaze decoration due to the large clay portion. I love this effect on under glaze decoration especially with cobalt.
I have been using hot paraffin wax mixed with about 15% ULTRA PURE paraffin oil to do my resist patterns between coats of glaze. Works well but it tends to dictate the type of patterns you can create. This is both liberating and limiting at the same time. I bought some Aftosa brand cold resist to try on some patterns that I just can't do with hot wax.

I have also been using oxide washes over various glazes. In this case it is Temple white / wax / iron oxide.


Notice on the rim that the banding gets a little thin. Temple white takes a lot more oxide than lower clay glazes. This effect could be used to great advantage with painted on scenes and decorations. If only I could paint.

Another combo I like is 4321 celadon / wax / iron oxide

4321 is a Bernard Leach glaze
potash feldspar 40
silica 30
whiting 20
epk kaolin 10

This glaze has lots of flux and lots of silica and is very fluid when it melts. Wax resist patterns move a lot and fine details tend to bleed together. This dictates what patterns will look good which is limiting but it also forces you to try out new patterns and when working with the hot wax it makes you move quickly and get things right the first try. I'll be interested to see if the Aftosa cold resist will allow for some different styles of patterns or if the glaze will be more of a deciding factor.

New flicker page

I started a flicker page with the latest batch of pots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29665788@N04/

I was really happy with how they turned out. One or two weren't that great but I loved the rest of them. Now it's back to the wheel to apply what I have learned.
see ya

NEW POTS 8-15-08

A few preliminary pics of the latest pots
more later after the kiln is unloaded.

most are either 4321 celedon with wax resist and some type of iron wash or iron bearing glaze dipped over. Right off the bat I am not happy with the unevenness on some of the oxide washes but on other the uneveness is fantastic... depends on the pot. The 2 tall slim necked bottles have temmoku dipped over and it just doesn't look all that great. I prefer the look of the iron wash but would like to find a way to make it more even.

Looks like I need an overglaze that is somewhere between straight iron oxide wash and temmoku glaze. Yeah! new things to test.

Some of the wax resist is hot wax while other is a cold resist from standard ceramic supply. That stuff is great (once you let it dry. don't be impatient)!!!!

More later

Would you like Cream and sugar with that?

I've been experimenting with a few coffee mug shapes lately. Here are a few I like.

Stamps

My friend Jessica makes stamps.
She makes lots of stamps.
I recently asked her to show me how she does it.
You'll need some smooth clay, paper, pencils, scissors, and some tools to carve with. The clay should be smooth like porcelain if you want to have crisp details.
Make some stamp blanks a little bigger than you need the final product to be and let them dry.
Draw your design on paper(computer) and cut it out or just draw right on the clay once it's dry.
Collect some tools to scrape/carve your design.

Now decide if this stamp is going to leave a raised design or an impressed design.
For an impressed design, carve away the clay that surrounds your image. For a raised design, do the opposite. The stamp pictured is for an impressed oak leaf that I plan to use in a variety of ways but mostly where handles attach to pots.

Give it a try.
You should see the cute little owl Jessica made when she showed me how to do this.

Getting to the point

I worked for a summer at a production pottery near San Antonio Texas. When throwing repeat forms it was important to make them a consistent size so we used pointers. Most of us used a wad of clay on the splash pan and stuck some kind of stick into it. It worked but had problems. You could easily bump it and move it off your mark. It couldn't be moved out of your way and back into position. So I decided to make a better pointer. This version is a definite improvement but it will be rebuilt at some point too to make further improvements.





What you can't see in the pic is the base. The upright is a 1/2" pipe and the base is a flange. The flange is clamped to the wheel now but some sort of permanent attachment will follow. The height is set with the bottom block and uses an eye bolt as the set screw. The top block is left free to rotate out of the way until needed. I use a brush as the pointer because it is a lot softer than other options and won't mark the pot being thrown. The brush is held in a hole drilled through the block and is held in place by jamming a toothpick in the hole with the brush handle.
Pointers aren't needed for a lot of throwing but I find them especially useful when making things that need to be a specific size like nesting bowls and drinking mug sets.