Can you remove wax resist from leather hard clay?

[Pugaboo]

I have been playing around trying to figure out how stuff works and reacts etc. I brushed some wax resist on a leatherhard ( leaning towards the dryer end of leatherhard) piece of clay. I wanted to practice carving into it to make fine lines and such so I could brush thin underglaze into the grooves then bisque fire. It did not go well the wax just peeled right off when I tried gently carving a line through it. Since it wasn't working I decided to just scrap the whole square of wax off the clay and that got me to thinking... can you scrape wax resist off leather hard clay? I know you have to refire bisqueware to remove the wax but would kind of like to know if this also applies to unfired clay. I was able to remove all of the test patch I did, or at least it appears to be gone as I removed a thin layer of clay during the scraping and now the area is a dull gray once more and water did not bead up when I wiped it with a sponge. So is the wax gone or is it still lurking there somewhere?

 

Terry

[TypicalGirl]

Pugaboo,

Can't help much in the wax resist dept as I don't use it, but for the incising you were trying, you might try brushing on shellac instead of wax and then try carving through that.

[Marcia Selsor]

The technique you were trying would work using wax resist on bisque, over a glaze and scratching the surface , then sponge on an oxide into the lines.

Wax on wet/leather hard clay will peel off as you describe.

To remove wax, fire the piece up to 500 degrees or a bit hotter to burn off the wax. Or just go ahead an bisque fire it.

 

Marcia

[Pugaboo]

Thank you