Rae Reich
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Porthos Is In The House!
Rae Reich replied to Hyn Patty's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
So much care and thought has come from long experience and patience. Porthos are sculptures to be proud of and that mane is really impressive! Thanks for sharing more details. -
Porthos Is In The House!
Rae Reich replied to Hyn Patty's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
Absolutely beautiful, @Hyn Patty!! I really appreciate the look behind the scenes into the mystery of assembling that challenging pose. Thank you for sharing and inspiring. (giggle) Fabio tail! How do you scale your creations? -
I like a broad shallow bowl with room for wetting, scraping both hands at once and for pulling handles over. I throw pretty dry, using slip/slurry and a chamois. Big water bucket for more washing and rinsing of tools. I just recently got one of those paint buckets with a handle, for painting, and then saw them being used by potters. Too narrow for me!
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Remembering my student days, the experience of actually handling pots made by acknowledged fine potters was given to us by a teacher who brought us in contact with contemporary fine potters. Consider a collection donation, documented as well as possible, to a favored school with a ceramics department. A “library” of pots available for reference would be wonderful inspiration. (I’m assuming that most of the works that we have accumulated are not ‘museum quality,’ but what we could afford.)
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I’m not too worried about “the youth,” @Pres. I saw a young potter on the Great Canadian Throwdown describe the coil-building technique as “like a 3D printer.” . Clay adapts to people and our needs. I’m starting to look for inheritors for my stuff. There are also our collections of significant (to us) pots - I’ve begun to redistribute some.
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Bisque Firing Porcelain - What Cone?
Rae Reich replied to Katie S's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
@Katie S Is the porcelain cast dinnerware? -
Sponges, chamois, plastic, all sorts of tools over the years in our ceramics lab recycle in college. Those chamois really disguise themselves! In commercial clay, a supplier, who was gradually going out of business, ran their rusting pug mill to the bitter end. We found chunks of rusty pugger in nearly every bag. No major injuries, but a challenge to throw. I was able to complete an 8” vase while leaving a 1/2” square of pugger in the wall, about halfway up, even while ribbing it out (carefully) as much as possible. We were curious about how it would fire. The fragment melted out and left a trail of mostly iron down the side beneath a tidy hole. ;p That Franklin Adams clay was really nice and a dream to throw, even so.
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Warped rims on my porcelain sculptures
Rae Reich replied to Bernardita Cossio's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
A thicker rim will hold its shape better, if you can work that into the design/construction. Q: is it strictly necessary to have a perfectly round rim? The intriguing soft appearance of your sculpture does not, to me, require a perfectly circular rim. -
240G clay cracking in the glaze firing
Rae Reich replied to SJohnston79's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
Nice work! I like the color, glaze technique and surfaces. -
slab plates center warping during glaze fire
Rae Reich replied to chris123's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
Plates take up a lot of kiln space! The skills to make consistent, flat, even-bottomed thrown plates need as much repetition as the other forms, so as many failures as need to be expected can be ‘time and kiln space’ expensive. I like hump-molded slab plates with a foot ring of a coil added . Foot ring can be thrown on if the mold is attached to a bat. Remove from mold immediately before clay begins to shrink by flipping it over onto another bat. I put a few sheets of newspaper (please support your local newspaper!) or dispenser-type heavy paper towel on the drying bat so that the plate can shrink/dry without sticking to the bat. Placement of the foot ring can help or hinder the flatness of the finished plate. Look at many examples carefully to make the best choices. -
@Reza Hosseiny, that will depend on if your gold luster matures enough at ^019. Generally, that rule applies to planned application of layers. You might try for a temperature a little closer to the previous one, if you have that much control over your firing.
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Lusters are tricky because they are so sensitive to firing temperatures and each subsequent firing has to be just a little bit lower than the last to prevent burning off previous work. Refire the piece to a bit higher than the first gold firing to burn it off and start fresh.
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Connecting gas kiln to house natural gas supply
Rae Reich replied to Mudfish1's topic in Equipment Use and Repair
Small changes, many notes. If there are sweet spots, you can plan around them. Nice to have a red that is acceptable in oxidation. -
Generally, pouring all the water over all the dry can result in a lump of dry stuck to the bottom of the bucket which is a bit harder to mix in - @Kelly in AK’s solution is another instance of patience doing the work while we do something else.
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Connecting gas kiln to house natural gas supply
Rae Reich replied to Mudfish1's topic in Equipment Use and Repair
We call that color ‘snot red -
Connecting gas kiln to house natural gas supply
Rae Reich replied to Mudfish1's topic in Equipment Use and Repair
Probably be helpful to use red stoneware for the cone packs to better gauge reduction. -
Old credit cards make good bench-scrapers and ribs. They can be cut into any profile needed for shaping and trimming pots, smoothing seams and surfaces. Notching the edges of the card will give you many kinds of texture possibilities.
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Hairline cracks along seams on slab built peices
Rae Reich replied to Seesee's topic in Studio Operations and Making Work
Since you have a deadline, it may be impossible to remake the piece in time. In that case, I would go ahead and fire the piece. Those cracks are not likely to expand to the point of destruction unless additional stress is put on it during the firing. You may need to accept the modifications to your piece as part of the process, maybe even emphasizing stress lines with glaze or coloration to incorporate them - an “I meant to do that” approach If there’s a possibility of completing a new piece in time (using and improving on what you have learned so far) I recommend that you make two or three at the same time as insurance, or at least the greater likelihood, of a piece completed as you envisioned. And maybe you’ll have a series! -
Is this Kyoto bowl safe for making matcha and food?
Rae Reich replied to ale6rbd's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
As long as you only make matcha it will be fine. The seepage of tea into the cracks enhances the pattern. However, don’t use with beverages that contain sugar or milk as these tend to encourage bacteria. I’m guessing the price was lower because of the cobalt smudge in your first photo, which would make it a second. -
Identify chemicals and what they are used for
Rae Reich replied to LinR's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
Do the members of your studio make their own glazes and/or clay bodies? If not, the materials could be donated to a local school with a ceramics department. -
Connecting gas kiln to house natural gas supply
Rae Reich replied to Mudfish1's topic in Equipment Use and Repair
A Soft brick damper is easier to slide, but can drop debris onto pots on the top shelf (speaking from experience). Keep top of kiln as clean as possible. -
Connecting gas kiln to house natural gas supply
Rae Reich replied to Mudfish1's topic in Equipment Use and Repair
Hard to imagine a flue-plus-damper situation for that kiln. Think you’ll find that even minuscule adjustments of a damper will make a difference. Patience required in your observations and note taking. Not sure about your Venturi design, but mine do have a threaded section at the bottom to adjust primary air. Again, minor adjustments and patient observation. Try just the damper first. -
If the clear glaze formula is the base for the white glaze, you probably could, with the colorant exceptions noted by @Hulk, but why would you want to? If your oxide decorations are sometimes changing your glaze surface, try mixing a little of the glaze into the oxide.
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Mixing different companies porcelain
Rae Reich replied to Liz Swain's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
I don’t know how much of the colored porcelain you have, but it’s clear you don’t want to waste it. Is it a small enough amount that wedging the whole batch seems doable? If not, do you have access to a pugger? Definitely, tests of the proportions of clays, colors, firing and shrinkage can be measured and assessed. At the least, you’ll have a small batch of special clay or your tests could result in a formula for your own blend. -
On matte glazes or unglazed surfaces, colored lusters like Blue Pearl aren’t iridescent but more like colored matte metallic. The basic mother-of-pearl doesn’t look like much.