18 hours from thrown on the wheel to glazed and out of the kiln!

Thursday 7th January 2016

It took 2-3 minutes to get this mug to soft insight-live.com/glossary/57">leather hard for trimming using a heat-gun (not a blow drier). It took seconds to stiffen the handle for attachment after. I am now taking it to stiff leather hard to prepare for glazing (left). I dry it evenly by judicious technique. Then I pour-glaze the inside and immediately push it lip-down down into the glaze to do the outside. I re-gun it a couple of minutes and then re-dip the outside bottom (up to the previous glaze boundary). Last I gun it another 3 minutes an put it in the kiln. The lesson: The key is not drying speed. It is how even the drying is (I watch the color change and focus on the wettest parts). Finally I fire 400F/hr to cone 6 (with an hour soak at 250F for final water smoking). The clay: Plainsman M370.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Drying Ceramics Without Cracks, Once fire glazing

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