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Hopefully someone will chime in here that uses Coyote glazes, but generally speaking it can take a few firings to get clay and glaze and loading dialled in for the way your kiln fires. If Coyote recommends cone 5 + a 30 minute soak then I would do that first using the med firing speed. I'ld also put a few cone packs in the kiln, bottom, middle and top shelves. BTW pinholes can be from the glaze not smoothing out but often they are from an improper bisque, especially with dark claybodies. Welcome to the forum

Actually they don't need to be bisqued first. If the cookie/waster slab is bone dry and the beginning of the glaze firing isn't ridiculously fast then greenware is fine. Very little shrinkage between bone dry greenware and it's bisqued measurements.

Hi Pauline, my condolences for your loss. If I was going to try this I'ld run some experiments using animal bone meal, like the stuff you get for gardens. Probably need to crush it unless you can find a source of fine bone meal. As an alternate trial I wonder if you mix animal bone meal with a white epoxy putty if that would might work instead of a fired process? Please do update us on your results, this painful topic doesn't come up often. (I'm going to expand on the title to reflect content a bit more)

Have a look at Dorothy Feibleman's work and process. Starting at about 2 min 30 seconds in the link below. Feibleman extrudes her canes but the important bit is she makes a slab from the canes and gently rolls then compresses the slab of canes then drapes the slab onto the form. I'm also wondering if your canes are damp enough, even dampness but wetter clay sticks together better than if it's on the dry side. YouTube wouldn't allow embedding the video, link is here

With darker claybodies it's a good idea to slow the bisque down during certain temperature ranges to allow carbons and sulphur to burn out. Between 150-320C organic carbons burn out and then between 700 - 900C inorganic carbons. Sulphur burns out between 700 - 1150C. I'ld slow your bisque firing down and go a little hotter with it also, up to cone 04 (approx 1050C. This could help your pinhole issue also. I don't know what controller you have and how many ramps you can schedule in it butIld try something along the lines of the schedule below. If you still have white spots and pinholes the

Probably from gasses coming through from the clay. What is your bisque firing schedule?

Are you using cones to verify what the kiln reached? Post some pictures of the glaze issues with and without the drop/hold schedule. Does you kiln fire evenly? If the top or bottom runs cooler you could load the glazes that do better at ^5 in those areas. Not all glazes benefit from a slow cool, generally speaking clear gloss glazes or glazes without visual texture won't look any different with a fast or slow cool. Where slow cooling is really beneficial is with alkaline earth mattes (glazes that rely on high amounts of magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium (not recommended for functi

I've found staples hold better than pins. (first image)

Glazing while the pots are quite warm helps too.

A long time ago when I was in a high school sewing class my teacher was talking about sloppy seam finishing. A couple people said the obvious, along the line of if it doesn’t show it doesn’t really matter. The teacher came back with “but you’ll always know it’s there”. I can’t count the number of times her reply has come back as a whisper in my ear. I’ve always felt better when I’ve redone something that is irking me. Some people might not have any problems with how these pieces look but it’s how you feel about them that's important. I think the fact you are asking the question means you

That first image looks like it could just be a plaster cast of flowers, like this.

Second image above is very quickly cooled, (fired in small test kiln) same problems, glaze is slightly less matte but still cutlery marks badly.

Perhaps if someone else is going to be firing their kiln soon they could include a glaze test of this to help try and sort out what's going on. Very different results between my tests and Bill's. To add a bit of detail to my testing: 325 silica used for the silica and Amtalc for the talc, Gerstley Borate from the current supply that's been out for a few years now. I buy most supplies by the 50lb bag, including everything used in this recipe so no mixup with labels at the supplier. Weighed to the tenth decimal point for accuracy. All tests put through an 80 mesh sieve. All tests fired wit

A couple things come to mind, first off the paper towel or newsprint under a pot isn't super accurate. It will let you know if a pot is weeping but not the actual absorption rate of the clay. If you are going to be making functional ware out of the same clay what I would strongly suggest doing is your own absorption tests by firing an unglazed bar of clay in your kiln with your glaze firing schedule. (just a couple hundred grams of clay or thereabouts is enough, approx 1/4" thick) As soon as it comes out of the kiln weigh it very accurately. Soak it in water for 24 hours, preferably for the fi