Bob Coyle

You never know with a new kiln. Best to waste some gas/electricity/clay and fire some sample pieces. Min & Sorcery are right but don't ever commit a kilns worth of pots to a firing schedule you didn't try or a kiln you are not familiar with, or a new glaze. Of course... good luck!

Not sure how textured you want your castings to be but one way would be to add whatever texture you want before you use your mason stain. I have tried everything from painting the finished dry clay piece in places with shellac and sponging the clay from the areas in between. Or just using a wire brush or tool to texture the piece before the final colored slip. You can also use a sponge dipped in slip and dab it on the leather hard piece. There is no one answer. Experiment around, Lot's of things work! PS.. your castings look great to me!

I'll throw in with Neil, hardboard is a great surface for working with clay. Also I would recommend a separate wedging table with a thick plaster surface. Mine is 3 inches thick and 24x24 inches wide. I have 2 inches of concrete on the bottom and an inch of plaster on the top. I built it at just the height I need to be able to put my full weight downward into the wedge, rather than work only from the shoulders. Since the wedging table is separate, you can really slam the clay down without shaking up everything else. I can also use it to roll slabs, using my trusty rolling pin.

You SHOULD be able to bisque un-glazed greenware stacked. Under glazes is a different problem. If you fire below the flux temp of the under-glaze you probably OK. Err on the side of safety. and wipe the bottoms and don't stack them if you are not sure. Maybe stack one or two and try it. If you are new to this, slow down and learn what will work and not work by testing non-critical pieces.

As the toothpicks start to burn, gasses will be produced that may crack the clay. it depends on the overall configuration of the piece. My default advice, as usual, is to try a small prototype of what you want and see what happens when you fire it.

WOW! Thanks for the reference Tyler. I got interested and went to Weiss's main page http://www.gustav-weiss.de This guy is amazing! I also love the great display of his glaze painting and sculptor. Spent about three hours reading his essays and looking at his art. This guy is a true ceramic philosopher not to mention a fine ceramic artist.

Benzine is correct... 800F won't do it. If you could completely surround the piece with glowing coals, you might get enough heat for a bisque, but unless it was taken up to temp slowly, it would blow apart.

Paint them first with a thick coat of white glue. Let it soak in and set up and then paint with whatever pint you want. Not as good as bisque but better than painted raw clay.

I have made ceramic pot handles that have a threaded nut inserted into the ceramic handle. These were made with low fire clay at cone 05. Of course the steel oxidized all to hell but the bolt did not split away from the ceramic after it cooled, and it threaded OK... it didn't crack the ceramic when I snugged it down. . You might be able to get away with something at lower temperature, but I am sure you would have an extensive re-work on any metal you might have showing.

When asked, I say "I do ceramics". When filling out a form I just put "ceramics". I think That lets people come up with their own image and I hope have enough curiosity to take a look