liambesaw

@Callie Beller DieselI got a good one today... At my booth of 99% functional ware: "Is it safe to eat off this stuff?" I said yes, and she picked up a large vase and said "Even this one?" Which was a weird question but I just said, "if you wanted to!"

Well I did my farmers market today, got out in the sun and got a lot of sketching done :/ Made 55 dollars, which was more than i was expecting since this was a 20 tent market and I was one of two Craftsmen there. luckily the booth fee was only 10 dollars! man there are some really weird people out there... Guy to the left of me was selling bleach water (FOR DRINKING!!!) and the booth across from me was selling essential oils... Don't these people know how dangerous those things are!?

Can't wait! Did another test last night, trying to make an iridescent copper lustre. So close! Came out a little too red for my taste but wow the depth it adds to the glaze is so beautiful!! This recipe was bismuth and iron salts, I think an addition of silver salt will tone down the red and add silver bringing it closer to copper. Hard to capture in photos This weekend I'll be bisquing and glazing lidded jars and sponge holders, last load before farmers market on Wednesday.

Resinous lustres are like the bright gold Duncan lustre you can buy for a zillion dollars. They don't require a reducing atmosphere so can be fired in an electric kiln. I'm just screwing around but figured they couldn't be too hard to DIY. I've got the flux and carbon, just need some good metal salts. I have silver nitrate coming Monday, palladium chloride, iron chloride, copper chloride, copper sulfate, cobalt chloride, etc. Probably will pick up stannous chloride, zinc acetate and cobalt nitrate next time I'm at the pottery supply place. Just another thing to experiment with, I can't help but tinker.

Thanks benzine! I got a response from a holiday art and crafts show I applied to last month, they said my work was a little too fancy for their show, which is a bummer because it's just down the street from me and on a weekend im not busy. I'm guessing it's more of a popsicle stick and yarn type of show or something. Having issues finding holiday shows that I can apply to, besides zapplication what else do you guys use to find shows to do?

So my first resinous lustre test was a success! It was kind of Jerry rigged because I just used stuff I had laying around. I have actual pine resin on its way, along with silver nitrate and some other metal salts to experiment with. All I had was bismuth oxynitrate which is the flux, but it gives a grayish sparkly lustre on its own. Not much to write home about but it fluxed, reduced and bonded to the surface, which is more than I was expecting. I used frankincense resin, turpentine and lavender essential oil and knew right away it was less than ideal because the frankincense wouldn't melt completely, probably from being a little too old and unrefined. Next round should be gooder!

This week has been fairly frenetic, I'm prepping for a farmers market next Wednesday, and at the same time researching resinous lustres and experimenting with them. Made my first batch of straight bismuth lustre yesterday after months of dissecting trade secrets and obfuscated SDS's, reading research papers and books, etc. There's just not a ton of information available on the science of them. Will be doing my first tests probably tonight to see how close I am, we will see! As far as throwing, I made a bunch of thrown sponge holders, a bunch of succulent platters, and a bunch of small lidded containers, and need to trim them all and bisque them so I can get a glaze firing in this weekend before the market! I finally got all of my ducks in a row, formed a business, established marketing materials and bought a canopy and tables. Only time will tell if it ever pays off!

It does now!

Yeah lots of compression and when you grab a ball to start, really sticking with it for a bit before working on it. Stupid S-cracks

That looks like a fun project! Hmmm, brb, going to add wedding favors to my website

I dont think mine was that clean when it was brand new

Well my shed is 10 feet by 10 feet and I haven't seen him, so I think he might have just stopped by, I'll set out some rat traps just in case though

I have a nice Bluetooth speaker setup in my shed that I blast tunes on. But most of the time I'm throwing alone in silence. There are also a few camcorders for recording what I'm doing so I can watch it back and/or make YouTube videos. That's kind of like having a companion, I feel like the cameras are a person and talk to them too. I also talk to myself while I'm throwing even if the cameras are off though, so I guess the voices in my head are another companion haha. Recently I found a rat or squirrel had visited my studio, so I wonder if they have taken up residence. I don't think so because there's no food and my cat is in and out all day, but there was evidence!

Busy guy! I thought you were retired I just went through 150 lbs of porcelain trying to find one that I can throw with. I found one that I think I like, but need to see how it does firing. I made a bunch of bowls, bottles and flower pots with it. I need to make a lamp for my mom, and I need to get back to bowls, plates and mugs soon. This week I am going to do a lot of work, hopefully get a bisque and 3 glaze firings in this weekend. I contacted a new farmers market in my town and I have a list of things I need to borrow or buy in order to do the market. A square reader, a canopy, business cards and a sign at the very minimum for this one, and hopefully will start to be able to build up enough show things to sign up for a few holiday shows. Fingers crossed anyway.

Assorted diamond discs, that's about it! And of course all of the black Costco bins with yellow lids that are packed full of mugs and bowls and plates. I have I think 6 completely full now, I can't really pick them up and move them around because they're too big and heavy, but when I end up doing a show I will repack into more manageable loads. One other thing I like to do after firing is to take pictures of the work, so I will pile it up inside and then wait for a cloudy morning to bring it all outside for pictures on my rotting deck. For that it's an ancient Canon DSLR with a really really nice 100mm f2.8 macro lens and adobe Lightroom for editing.

I bought a mounting box for mine, it was 50 dollars from a local kiln manufacturer, but better than what I was going to do which was mount it in a large metal junction box.

You can buy a Bartlett v6cf, a thermocouple, a transformer and some relays and convert it. It's a bit more involved than buying a kilnmaster. Well a lot more involved. But you'll be have a lot more intimate knowledge about how a kiln and controller work afterwards. It just will take some research.

Mine is a drill with blunger, a giant whisk, a pouring measuring cup from the dollar store, a turkey baster and a large tiling sponge. I also occasionally use wax! No brushes or tongs though, I should probably get some sometime lol

Got to open the kiln last night, almost everything came out great, which is a blessing for sure. Started another glaze load last night and hope it's just as dope.

It may fail to trip and you could have an issue.

Well, I'm out of clay... So I'm going to get some tomorrow! A half ton this time, my tahoe is rated for 1480lbs of weight, and that explains why my February order felt so wrong driving home haha. Trying out some different porcelains and then getting mostly my red stoneware. I need to do a few firings this weekend so I'm going to go ahead and load and bisque tonight, 30 mugs, 8 dinner plates, 8 small plates, bunch of condiment dishes, spoon rests, vases, etc. It's gonna be a full load. I also have a few videos I need to record this weekend. Going to do a teapot video and I think some citrus juicers. Haven't sketched the juicers out yet but should have time tonight for that.

I'm all for testing on something real, but when I say test a glaze first, I mean before mixing up more than a test batch. I'm sure in a school setting where every piece is precious it has a different connotation.

My basic throwing kit, after buying and making all sorts of tools: 1) pointy asian style trim tool 2) small wooden kidney 3) whatever junky sponge is around 4) chamois And last but most important and versatile...... 5) metal rib And here's what I use them for: 1) trim tool - I use it to clean up the "buttress" or skirt on mugs'n'jugs and to pull my bats off. Thing is a champ and that's why it's on my bench. Cost me 99 cents at the ole pottery shoppe 2) kemper small hardwood kidney rib - it has a flat side, it has a curved side, what's not to like. But really I use this for compressing the bottoms of plates and as an inside compressing rib when doing a tall form (with the metal rib on the outside). 3) junky sponge - now I don't want to name any names, but after trying some fancy name brand sponge pack I have to say I wore them out in short order and moved on. I use chunks of tile sponge, Hydra sponges (the cheap round ones in the kits), etc. If you're married to the mudtools ones, try the foam from a box of cones, it works great. 4) chamois - ok I'm gonna ruffle some feathers here, but you can take your paper towels and bag plastic and you can go ahead and put them in the garbage where they belong. Nothing feels as good as gripping that slimy little piece of lambskin and pulling it down over a rim. Nevermind the beautiful, perfect, compressed, strong, and incredibly smooth surface it leaves behind. That's great and all, but I mean actually just holding the thing and letting it slide in your fingers, when you wring it out, when you slap it onto the side of your water dish... It's all magical! It almost feels ethereal and lighter than air. Anyway, chamois are great. 5) metal rib - ok, metal ribs, let's be honest... They're cheating, right? No one tool should have all of this power. I use my metal rib for so many things, I will begin describing them now. I clean my bats with one, I shape pretty much everything I throw with one, I scrape slip off of clay, I decorate with one, I burnish with one while trimming, the list goes on forever! Definitely my favorite tool. Beyond those for throwing I also now rarely use a needle tool, pretty much just for scoring, though still occasionally use one to level off the top of an uneven rim. The other occasional use tool is a large cooking chopstick from daiso. It serves as throwing stick, and general all around stick for doing stick stuff. For trimming I pretty much use a thin dolan pear and a screw cap from a gallon milk jug. I'll tap whatever I'm trimming into center, put the milk cap in the middle and apply gentle downward pressure on the milk cap to hold whatever I'm trimming on center and just hack at it with the pear tool. I occasionally use an Asian style trim tool but I can't keep them sharp enough for them to be of any long term use whereas the dolan tools are hardened steel and the edge lasts quite a while, even on groggy stoneware. Welp, that's about it and probably far too detailed, but you can go tool crazy if you aren't careful. For mugs I'm down to sponge, chamois, metal rib and trim tool, and I get into a pretty good rhythm can pump one out every 2-3 minutes to the gauge. Speaking of which, I've got 30 out in the shed that need to be thumbed off and handled... Toodles!

Haha, hey, it's organic, 100% natural reclaim conditioner.

Elements are usually 40-50 bucks a piece, so it depends on how many are in there