neilestrick

Illinois just cancelled the remainder of the school year.

My wife reads a lot of articles every day about Corona transmission since she's still working, and they're now finding more and more cases of people who are testing positive with no symptoms at all. For instance, 60% of the 600 sailors on the aircraft carrier that's been in the news that have tested positive have no symptoms. That means we really don't have a clue about infection rates. So until everyone can be tested for infection and antibodies, nothing should be opened up. If they don't do it that way we'll just have another wave of infection and fill up the hospitals again. Here in Illinois, we're adding over 1,000 cases a day, partly do to the fact that we're now testing over 7,000 people every day and that number is increasing. But as long as those infection rates stay high or keep increasing, we're in lockdown. The numbers need to get low and stay low for at least two weeks before we can open up, and everyone needs to get tested. So I know our lockdown will extend well into May, if not June. I don't expect the kids to go back to school. Once I'm able to open my shop back up, I expect we'll be wearing masks in the studio, especially since I have a fair number of seniors in my classes. I don't think there should be any art fairs or large public gatherings of any sort until August at the very earliest at this point, but I have a feeling that some of the July shows will still happen because people are hungry for money. I'll be wearing a mask if I do any shows this year, which will be really unpleasant in the warmer months.

You probably won't find any info on it, but Euclids will be able to make elements for it, and can probably help with bricks, too. They'll need all the info from the serial plate, as well as kiln dimensions and element groove size and spacing.

Holy cow that looks good! Tell me how to cook tofu like that. I've never done it, never bought tofu, but we had some a sushi place recently and it was awesome.

The pink totally makes it look like Easter. Without the pink they read more mid-century. Although at this stage they're pretty pastel, and they do all look like eggs!

1 and 2 pound vases.

I started running again! I'm trying to get out every day, but the weather isn't always cooperating. Today it's 43 degrees with 20mph winds, so I think it'll be a rest day.

I used to make French butter dishes, and they are a royal pain for the first few. A regular pain once you get used to them. I found that due to the amount of work I put into them (it's like making two pots), and having to fire them separately (again, like making two pots), I had to charge a little more than most people wanted to pay. Personally, I don't think the water is necessary, as you can leave butter sit out for a really long time before it goes bad. Plus the water drips on the table/counter when you open it up, and it's hard to remember to change the water, and the water is more likely to breed bad stuff than the butter.

@Babs that looks delicious! Who made the pots?

Illinois lockdown has been extended to April 30. Tomorrow I get to play teacher as my kids start their e-learning. So far their school has been really good about keeping us informed about everything. Luckily they had a pretty tech-savvy curriculum already. Both kids have Chromebooks and they use Google classroom for a lot of their assignment tracking.

@Donn has not been on the forum since 2010, so you might want to try sending a direct message

This is how my family does snow.

These are the only bears we get around here. Rarely do I find them rummaging around outside my house.

During the winter I always forget how good little tomatoes are. In the summer we use them all the time since they grow on the deck. Thanks for the reminder!

Thank you!

With everyone stuck in their homes, people are spending a lot of time in the kitchen. We thought it would be fun to share what we've been cooking, and the pots that are part of the process. Please share the culinary delights you've been creating during lockdown, and the recipe! I'll go first: I've been making sourdough bread for quite a while, but have only just become confident and competent with it in the last couple of years, thanks to Instagram and Youtube, and the wealth of information that has been shared. I make a loaf almost every week on Sunday or Monday (my days off), that I mostly use for sandwiches and panini, and on Sunday mornings I make French toast with the week old leftovers. The loaf pictured below I just made yesterday, and it's one of the best I've ever done. I used 550 grams of flour (30% whole wheat and 70% organic white flour), 10g sea salt, 72% hydration, and 100g of 50/50 starter. I only use whole wheat in my starter. I cook my bread in a cast iron Dutch oven, preheated for 45 minutes at 450F before putting the bread in. The first 20 minutes of the bake are with the lid on, then I drop the temp to 430F until it's done, about 25 minutes more. Most of the sourdough breads you see on Instagram are high hydration (80% or more) and have a really open crumb, which makes for great photos. But it's terrible for sandwiches because the mayo or butter or Italian dressing or whatever you like to put on your sandwich tends to go right through and get all over your hands. At lower hydration I get a tighter crumb that's still light and soft, but closed enough to make a decent sandwich. The bowl I use to mix my bread dough is a cone 10 reduction porcelain bowl I made about 12 years ago. It has a water etched swirl pattern and a true celadon glaze- reduced iron, not a green stain. It's slightly flawed, like many of my pots that I've kept for my own use, with a small hole in the wall from an impurity that burned out of the clay. It's a good sized bowl, big enough to be used as a popcorn bowl, and probably bigger than I need for making bread, but it's nice to have the extra space when mixing.

Thank Bill! I'll keep that in mind. My 6" fan will be here next week, and I'll post the results.

@Bill Kielb I just did a smoke test, and not only is there not backdraft between the two 4" line, there's actually draft from each line when the other is on. So that's all good. We'll see if that changes at all when the big fan is installed. If it is, I can just install a 45 degree takeoff higher up ad keep the 6" with the cap as a cleanout.

I see what you're saying. I hadn't though of that. I'll see how this goes and make changes later if needed. The big fan will only be running when both vent fans are on, so backdraft will only be an issue when the small kiln is running solo.

Yeah, I though about that but figured I could add backdraft dampers later if needed. It was never an issue on the old system, but we'll see what happens once the big fan is installed. I don't love the idea of using them because I'm sure they'll get corroded and stop working pretty easily. The cap on the 6" is a standard cap but it's really old and rusty! There are just toggle switches on the power cords.

Not on my workbench, but next to my workbench. Yesterday I finished up redoing my kiln venting system, and cleaned out the kiln area. What a mess it was! The old duct was in bad shape, and the motors were shot. Back when I moved into this space in 2008, I had them put in an 8" duct in the roof, which would give me plenty of options for the future. An 8" duct can go down to two 6" ducts, which can each go down to two 4" ducts. So for this setup I've got two new downdraft vent motors mounted to the wall. They can each run up to 20 cubic feet of kilns, so I've got both attached to my big kiln, and the medium kiln shares one of them. The black ducts are Blo-R-Vac hose, which you can get at McMaster Carr. It's got a metal coil in it so it can't be easily crushed, and it's pretty much impervious to corrosion. It's rated to 250F, about 100F above the temp of the air going through it. The extra 6" duct at the top will be getting an inline 400cfm fan to pull some heat out of the space. I've never had a fan in there before, but I thought it would be nice in the summer to pull some of the heat out of there. I'm still waiting for the fan to arrive from Amazon.