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Slip Dipping Small Wasp Nests?


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The &*^%! wasps are kind enough to leave me a few of these every winter hanging around the eaves, mailbox, etc. One is about 4" across, the other about 2", open honeycomb shape.

I can only fire at cone 5-6. Trying to decide which color/s of slip to use; I've got white porcelain, a BC white type, a groggy dark brown, speckled buff and a black-black cassius. Not sure what they'll be: object d'art, broken up first for jewelry focals, applied to a wall-hung tile or pots?

Any suggestions on how to retain as much detail as possible yet get the slip to fill all the spaces and coat them nicely?

Should I use one thicker coat or multiple coats? Still not sure if I'm leaving them whole or trimming them into jewelry-size pieces. I'd like to do this in future with vegetable things from nature with a papery, burnable quality so it should be an interesting experiment. 

 

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I think that you'll lose a lot of detail if you just dip it in slip. That works well for absorbent things like woven fabrics and lace, but I think with a wasp nest the slip will just sit on top and all the detail will be on the inside. I suppose if you build up with very thin slip it might work, but you may also have a problem with the slip cracking as it dries around the nest. I think you'll just have to try it and see, unless someone else here has already tried it. If you really want detail, make a plaster mold of the nest that you can then slip cast.

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I want to say this has been discussed before.  However, I think it was that someone (Maybe Marcia???) that mentioned mud daubers, and firing their nests.  That is, of course, quite a bit different because of the nest materials.

 

But after success using slip soaked yarn, the wasp nest idea interests me.  This is especially true, as we also have quite a few wasp nests at our house.  It's an old house, with wood soffits, so the Paper Wasps love them for building nests.  Some even got pretty bold recently, and started building a nest in between our storm door, and main exterior door.

 

Since I have plenty of new and old nests to choose from, I may give it a whirl.  I will note, that I did dip a paper towel in slip, and successfully fired that.  And it was one of those brown coarse paper towels.  So they are terribly absorbent either.  

 

The biggest issue I see with the wasp nest, is the fragility.  With dipping fabric or even the paper towel, I wrung out the excess slip, with each coating.  Even though wasps build strong, lightweight nests, squeezing out the excess slip might damage them.

 

Only one way to know for sure...

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The fragility of the wasp nest will be extreme, and I think it's unlikely to survive slip dipping without some other form of reinforcement. The problem to get around is that most wasp nests will dissolve rather easily in any kind of moisture. It's essentially some of the shortest-fibre paper made by nature. The best thing i can think of would be to very carefully build up layers of some kind of spray varnish first, to render it waterproof. Even then, I think the best you're going to get would be some kind of texture impression. If you're motivated by pedantic process or trying to Macgyver things, this could be a fun exercise.

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Your suggestions give me the idea to perhaps coat them using a small brush with acrylic medium first. If you haven't used it it's great stuff, a lot like white glue or mod podge except it dries water resistant (it will peel off and start wrinkling in warm soapy water) but should be enough to apply the slip. I'll maybe try dipping one in thin slip and the other apply it with a small narrow brush. I want to articulate the holes of the nest as well as keep it's overall shape. On the other hand, I don't have a lot of space and patience for extremely fragile things; no room for curio cabinets in my place, I'd prefer an end result that will be strong enough to at least be wearable.

 

I'll post some pics soon.

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Thanks for the link Min, very interesting work. I do something like his insects with the faces on their backs already, the way he incorporates organic elements is something I'd like to do as well.

 

@Marcia, these are paper wasps but yes they do put their nests in inconvenient places, like inside the mailbox every year, and will build it right back up the day after I knock it out.

 

@Oldlady, did you use a special kind of sprayer or something simple like a spray bottle? Maybe I'll try that instead.

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my sprayer is the $30 EZE sprayer from chick tools.  your supplier may sell them.  you might want to change the sprayer onto a lid that fits cheaper bottles.  the chick ones are $5.  ridiculous.  and they leak, 24 of my 36 bottles leak.

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  • 1 month later...

Very interesting Idea, i have been planning on doing something similar with the swallow nests around my work.  There are tons. I even actually pulled a couple down (after october when they left) in the hopes of making a plaster of paris mold and then slip casting them. I'd like to attach them to a panel so they can be hung on a wall.  Try a google search for "Biology of the Cliff Swallow" by Wilbur M Mayhew.  They have a process of recreating the fragile mud nests...maybe it could be used on wasp nests as well??

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i do not think i ever saw the reason you want to do this?  have to assume you have something in mind to even suggest such a strange thing.  firing them plain has been done.  what wonderfulness do you expect from adding slip???

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maybe somewhere to start, if you scroll down to his second page there are a few images of porcelain wasp nest pieces. he has a facebook page, don't know if there is more info there.

 

https://www.instagram.com/jadreyes_portfolio/

I think those are honeycombs, which are wax already and can be easily cast. Famously done by Minoans.
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