Hyn Patty

Noted. And sometimes I use IPA - depends which one is handier. I've never had an issue with either one since I literally only use a drop or so in my water spray bottle of the bleach. The generic bleach I buy only lists one ingredient and nothing added for scent. (I also incidentally use it for phytosanitary applications like tissue culture of plant materials.) Yes! This method of cutting up the piece is typical for casting porcelain and bone china in the UK and Europe. Indeed it was a few photos shared here with me from another member (who may or may not wish to be named) that helped me figure out this problem. I also worked with porcelain sometimes and I've been working on perfecting and testing English bone china slip I've made here in my studio. So I went ahead and produced this multi-part mold for that purpose. It works just as well for earthenware. As I knock some rust off I'll be pushing to try and make more complex molds that would allow me to cast Porthos as whole and as close to one piece as possible. Body with three legs attached most likely, with the head and neck separate and that cocked back leg. That would take less assembly and thus less time. And problem solving with mold making is an excellent challenge to practice if you want to get better anyway. One of my new sculptures I have started is the 'Spider foal' that is rolling. I'm jokingly calling it my 'spider' sculpture for now because it looks hideous! But it's in the early 'skeleton' stage where I flesh out the proportions of the bones and set the joints as points of reference from which I will build up tendons, muscle, skin, etc over top. Anyway, you can see that I do not like to sculpt with molding limitations in mind. So being able to mold them in pieces and assemble ANY kind of pose or complex arrangement really frees me up to do anything I want.

Here's a quick shot of one of my wet boxes. It's just a plastic box with a lid that I happened to pour a little left over plaster into. I keep it wet with distilled water with a few drops of bleach in it so things won't mold. A layer of paper towel helps keep the plaster clean should I want to use it with different kinds of clay pieces. You can see I have already attached Portho's head to his neck, then his neck to his body. Due to the angle of the head and neck with the shoulder, and the muscling of the neck swelling in and out in the curve, it would be difficult (but not impossible) to mold that area to pour as a single piece. It would require multiple internal small mold pieces. So much easier to simply cut his head and neck off and mold them separately. It only takes a few minutes to score and slip stick all of his various pieces together once I have cleaned off the seams. I do this when he's firmed up nearly leather hard. Once he is leather hard and actually starting to dry I can remove him from the box and burnish his seams properly and do final detailing.

Yes! I've gone off and on to Breyerfest since the mid 90's and that is indeed the event I am attending this year in July. So I want to have a few of these in both sizes and both main versions produced in time to take with me. I'm also flying out to California to judge a show of equine art and of course want to take some there too. I also do a number of fine art shows once in a long while but shipping can be VERY costly and I have moved away from paying gallery and show commissions on my sales. I get plenty of people willing to fight over the pieces I post to public auctions online. Thank you both for your kind words. I would love to see your dog pieces, Denise! I used to sculpt a few dogs as well so if I ever have time I plan to get back to doing that once in a while in between equine pieces. You are right Jeff that molding a piece like Porthos /can/ be crazy - if I was determined to cast him entirely in one piece, whole. The issue of his sharply turned head and neck, and the close proximity of his back cocked leg that actually crosses over partly in front of his other back leg, would be ... very challenging to say the least. So I cut up my 'master' I was molding and I actually cast Porthos in a few pieces. With practice, assembly and clean up of such a sculpture goes pretty quickly. I can demold the pieces into a wet box, allow them to firm up a bit, then do the old score and slip-stick routine. Since I'm the sculptor it is no trouble whatsoever for me then to clean up and redetail those areas I had to attach. That way it's actually not that difficult to mold such a sculpture as long as you don't mind some assembly. I can easily put a piece like this together and do all the initial clean up and resculpting in about an hour or less. Then back into the wet box for slow drying to prevent cracking as he has some uneven thickness in some areas. To facilitate easier molding I can also flood some minor undercuts such as the tail bow, and simply go back and hand detail those pieces again after casting and assembly. It does mean I spend a lot of time with post casting but on the other hand I get thousands of dollars per piece once completed so it's well worth my time to make them the highest possible quality I can.

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand. Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him. Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey! This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event. But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic! I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done. I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes. The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet. They each fit down into little holes I have drilled down his neck. I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall. I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while. At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition. I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year. Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture. Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year. Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces. This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size. He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better. Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later. So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

Nope! It's just an old fashioned slide rule, no frills. I don't need it to be SUPER accurate down to the ... whatever for the kind of work I do. I would love a real set of calipers but the kind I like are expensive, not cheap plastic, so I still don't actually own any. When I need to measure larger proportions I whip out string or a measuring tape. Real live horses don't mind too much. Pretty high tech, right? But it works! For little stuff this old slide rule works fine. I really should keep an eye out for some old fashioned ones at the local antique stores. I might find something cheap that'll work well enough. In other news I FINALLY got another 100 lbs of Pottery Plaster into the studio! Whoo! Who would have guessed that it would be difficult to find pottery plaster and dodge having to pay through the nose for it? Geesh. Crazy.

My hands and my eyes (and maybe my mind too) are all irreplaceable in my work. Everything else? I can get by without, or replace, or just remake. A lot of my tools I've made or reshaped to fit my needs. Denise! Your heavier than usual wire cutter for example is likely stupid easy to make a replacement. I use dental tools, clay tools, tiny knitting needles for fine hair texture, etc but the one dearest to my heart is my solid brass slide rule - because my father, who was an aeronautical engineer of some renown, gave it to me when I first started sculpting so many years ago (almost 50 years ago now). I use it like calipers for smaller pieces I need to measure and check proportions on - great for making sure the leg bone lengths match, or checking the length of the head against the length of ... well, anything else. And so forth. So sure, I can just run out and buy another slide rule but ... this one is special. I'd hate to misplace it.

Oh my Gerd. I -FINALLY- managed to locate pottery plaster. What a PITA. I usually can get it locally for about $20 per 50 lb bag if I pick it up at Highwater Clays in Asheville (a long drive for me but worth it). But of course they have been out of it and backordered for bloody ever due to ongoing COVID foo backups. So I finally broke down and called all around until I found Kruger Pottery just got in a load. Whew! My big event is in July and I have clayed up so many molds that I didn't dare order rubber until I could be sure I could also get more plaster. The $100 shipping on two bags hurts but at least it's on it's way! Hopefully Highwater will eventually get some in and I can get a few more bags yet but without the shipping charges. Fun, fun. I did mention that this thread might be better placed in the mold making and slip casting forum...

No worries at all. If ever in doubt it's always a good idea to double check things and not just take some individual's word on something. So no harm in calling your kiln manufacturer. But there are only a few kinds of materials used in kiln furniture and you can tip any of it on it's side without harm. Firing ceramics, despite our fancy electronic controllers and such, really is an ancient art form and hasn't changed that much even with more modern materials and techniques. So kiln furniture is pretty basic. Also, your kiln manufacturer almost certainly didn't make any kiln furniture you got with your kiln any more than they make the fire brick they build them with. That stuff usually comes from just a few manufacturers who in turn supply all the kiln production companies. Kind of like china paints - they all come from China but there are only two companies in the USA who import and redistribute it no matter who you actually buy it from.

I second the suggestion of heating the pottery before dying, whatever you use. That'll help open up and expand the crackle. You got lots of great advice here. I hope it works and have fun! Show us photos after?

You do know this all predates 'manufacturers', right? People have been using kilns and kiln furniture for thousands of years and reusing the same basic materials to do so. But if in doubt just call your kiln manufacturer. You don't have to take our word for it.

Yep! Position them ANY way you like. I often use them on their sides to stilt pieces up off the bottom of my kiln if my equine sculptures are on bases. Without airflow, the larger bases in direct contact with the kiln floor can retain a LOT of heat where as the slim legs above may cool too fast and cause the pieces to break. You may also stack your kiln posts to 'build' walls. I also have an assortment of other kiln furniture that was given to me but here's a really sweet tip. You can buy materials to MAKE YOU OWN custom kiln furniture and stilts. I've done this in some cases where I really need special shapes and then added various thickness of Kanthal wire to run up into pour holes or whatever for especially delicate pieces that would other wise fall over during firing. Or you can skip the specialty materials if you need one use supports custom fitted to ware by making 'setters' instead that can shrink with your pieces, such as used with porcelain bodies. Anyway, I digress. No harm at all in utilizing your kiln furniture turned this way and that, or stacked. I've even used bits of broken shelves that were given to me for nothing and busted them up to the shapes and sizes I needed. You can even get or make 'kiln beads' that you can box to form customized supports and nestle ware down into.

I know nothing about gas kilns and have always used electric. Kudos to you guys. I have nothing helpful to input, just popcorning while I read along and try to learn something kewl.

Good job! Stoneware I assume? Love the texture. You should be able to get moss to grow on it easily, especially if you place it in a shady location. Depending on your environment of course. Up here on our temperate rainforest mountain moss and lichens grow on EVERYTHING even out in full sun. If you want any tips or tricks to get moss and lichens growing quickly there are tons of websites out there to help you. Lovely lantern. A nice feeling when you can achieve something you couldn't afford otherwise, isn't it? Pat yourself on the back! Oh! And if you REALLY loved making it, consider making mold pieces of it so you can replicate it and make more of them! For yourself, for friends, to sell in an Etsy shop, whatever. Just a thought. The challenges of learning mold making can be vastly rewarding as well and isn't nearly as difficult as people think it is.

Personally I have no idea why L&L does whatever it does. I don't own that kind of kiln. But for the most part no matter what brand of kiln you use, if it's electric, they all work about the same with only minor variations like manual versus electronic. If in doubt just call L&L up on the phone and ask them.

They are probably using alcohol inks. Which are FAR brighter than normal inks. But beware - alcohol inks tend to fade badly with UV exposure over time. That may be less an issue with the glaze itself to help filter out some UV but you might find that in a decade the ink could use a new application to freshen up the color. You'd do better to just use the more stable fade-proof inks as you are, or even better, rub that down with thinned china paints into the cracks and then just fire it. Then you KNOW it's permanent and won't fade or wash out over time. You can get the color of your choice and simply thin it with alcohol, then dab it into the cracks. Buff off any extra and then fire to the standard 016 or so, whatever your china paint calls for that particular color. SUPER NIFTY alternative for a more Japanese look? Rub down all the cracks with GOLD or white gold luster, then buff off any external residue, then fire THAT. Particularly over a dark glaze that looks amazing! Or use a thinned gold or silver paint if you don't want to deal with the toxic burn off and cost of actual gold lusters. Trick of course is to get it thinned enough. Wider your crazing cracks the better. If they are SUPER fine then you may have a hard time using the niftier alternatives. But worth a try on a test piece. Different kinds of crackle glazes can give you finer or coarser crackling. If the crackle is too fine to get your stain materials into it, try soaking the whole thing in the stain of your choice over night. Or your crackle may just be too fine to absorb anything but pure inks. Just be sure if you want to use the items for food, the crackle has to go on the outside ONLY and not inside where food may be in contact. Crackles will trap bacteria. Or better still, use crackles for non-food uses, ideally with a fully vitrified clay so there won't be porosity where water can seep in and cause the clay to break your glaze off later like it does with earthenware.

I second all of what D said above. While the details may vary it all has to do with properly oxidizing the new elements, whether it is a brand new kiln or simply an element replacement. In the case of a new kiln it is also about making sure all the kiln body itself is properly seated and set. People used to think you needed to fire higher than cone 04 but I think the more up to date concensus is that cone 04 is the new standard most people go by. Congrats on your new kiln!

Hahaha, some of these are my husband's Legos from when he was a kid, some are my son's, and some I ordered el-cheapo online. Sold, gave away, or donated anything that wasn't the basic block shapes or sticks. They aren't really practical for larger mold boxes but they work great for little stuff! I know, right?? I did the back end of a horse for poots and giggles but turns out I really like the elegance of it!

I can't claim credit for the recycling rubber idea. I got it from the Tiki Technical videos where he's using Rebound 40 which costs about twice as much as the Mold Max 40 I'm using. But he's also doing MUCH higher production numbers on his mugs than I do with my equine editions. I don't bother with a spread sheet for simple math I can do in a couple of minutes, though people can! But I am a big fan of using spread sheets for more complicated tracking. Like for every edition I release I use spread sheets to track what's been cast and what # of the edition I'm on, how many I am getting out of a mold and which mold # I'm on, when a piece has been cleaned, fired, packed, shipping paid or pending, shipping labels made or not, client name & address for orders, what/how/when they paid their deposit, any monthly payments they are making, special directions for alternate shipping destinations -like if they are in Germany, I'm not set up to ship there so pieces get sent to an intermediary who can forward them on for the client, my total costs per piece, special requests by clients are noted and separate pages set up for those if needed, and so forth. I suppose I could add the math parts to my already existing note sections just to track it. Running my LLC is a lot of work so there is a lot to track including taxes, quarterly payments, property tax, etc. Also lots of notes on the usual stuff like testing new glazes, mixing or overlaying of various brands of over glazes like combining enamels with china paints, how glazes change the look of various underglazes, notes on new slip batches I've made, whatever. As I get older and my memory less reliable I am having to go back and check my notes more often. Like to remind myself ... mixing cadmium based overglazes with non-cadmium colors is not a good idea!

Suspending the handle with wires is a far more complicated way to do it and just using more oil clay to lay in a bed complete with keys. Pour one side in plaster, then flip it all over, remove the oil clay bed from the handle, then pour the plaster on the second side. Very easy. That said, I'd suggest you sculpt the handle you want and get us a photograph both of the handle at a few angles and how you think you want to set it up in your mold box. Much easier for folk to help you if we have visuals. Otherwise you already got lots of great advice here.

Could be a Dry Lakes glaze - there are several available that have super heavy, thick textures in various colors just like this. Such as this one: Luguna Dry Lake Blue There are also several bead and pebble glazes out there that crackle and crawl and due to the rounded edges I suspect that more than the Dry Lakes - such as this Ritual Glaze Bead and here are some Brain Coral Crawl Glaze Recipes Here's another one though a little different look to it shown on Pinterest Crawling Glaze So maybe that will be helpful to you. I have used this kind of glaze heavily on stoneware before and it's HUGELY FREAKING FUN. But sometimes it's pricy too. You can also try layering it on thickly and doing multiple fires to see how it progresses! I imagine if you texture your ceramic body first and then apply this you can really push it further and that may be what he did. Good luck!

Now lastly for a bit of math. Yes, MATH. But this is real simple stuff so no groaning! If I have six small molds I have clayed up and boxed, I need to know how much plaster to mix up to pour them all start to finish with all of their various parts. Or rubber! Rubber is especially expensive, running about $100 to $250 PER GALLON depending on the kind of rubber I'm using. In this case I'm going with Smooth-On.com's Mold Max 40 (the number is the shore hardness). These are for my masters, including all mold parts and the positives for making plaster production molds from as well. So by the time I'm done there will be no hollow parts. Most people can deduct a little bit based on your rough measurements of hollow cavities you won't be filling. So, how much do I need and how do I figure it out? Now I have set up all my mold boxes and clayed up for my first pours I have a pretty good idea how large each finished mold will turn out to be. So they are roughly the following in inches: 4x4x6, 3x4x4, 3x6x7, 4x6x1, 3x6x2, and 2x2x4. These are to produce one mini horse sculpture with parts to assemble, as well as my flat medallion sculpted above, and another larger medallion I'm molding of another artist's work whom I've purchased ceramic casting rights from. I know I just need enough rubber to fill in approximately this much space per each mold and I can pour plaster for extra outer supports to conserve on the amount of rubber I need. If I multiply the three measurements for each approximated mold I get totals like 96 for the first one, 48 for the second one, 126, 24, 36, and 16 which I then add up to get a total of 346. What does that mean? It means that my total volume I plan to fill with rubber (or plaster) is roughly 346 cubic inches. Then I go pull up a handy converter online doing an internet search with the keywords 'cubic inches to gallons converter' and presto! Up it pops. (I use online converters all the time for mm to inches, oz to grams, whatever). Turns out that 346 cubic inches equals just a hair less than 1.5 gallons in liquid. Yay! This kind of information can tell me about how about much plaster I will end up using for making all six molds, AND also tell me how much rubber because I'm making the rubber masters for plaster mold production. Therefor since my choices are ordering the rubber in pints, gallons, or 5 gallon sizes, I'll order 2 gallons. I'll possibly end up with a bit more than I actually need but that's way better than cutting it too close and not having enough to pour all six. For plaster your voids may be large enough to measure, multiply, then deduct from your total volume. Other tips - while this won't help with pouring your plaster molds, you can cut up old rubber molds and use them to help fill in larger volume areas during your pour. This can also keep your rubber cost down. So if I cut up a few molds into little cubes I can toss that into a 5 gallon bucket until I'm ready to pour my rubber. Ahead of time I can figure out about how much of the recycled rubber I'll be using and then I can downsize my order perhaps to only 1 gallon instead of 2! That could save me anywhere from $100 to $250 per gallon I don't have to order in rubber! Mold Max 40 runs $114 per gallon plus shipping so it's not nearly as costly as some rubbers. I eyeball my left over pottery plaster. I have plenty to mix up a couple of gallons of plaster but with the expectation that I'll have some wastage every time I mix, it may be cutting it close. Besides, I'll be wanting to pour multiple production molds of each project anyway. So to be safe I'll pick up another bag of plaster too. See? Simple, basic math. It can be so helpful!

Small update - here is the finished oil clay with a very simple Lego mold box erected around it. I tend to use Legos (or generic off brand) for tiny things and I made larger mold boxes out of wood or thick acrylic plexi as needed for larger projects. I have sealed this down with oil wax and then added a bead of oil clay all the way around it on the outside. I'm about to add a very thin bead of oil clay around the inner edge of the box as well so I can be REALLY sure there will be no leakage. I will then coat the inside of the mold box and glass backing with oil soap. I can fill it with water to the depth I want to check for leaks, then pour the water off and measure it to see how much plaster or rubber I will need to make my pour. At this point you can see I haven't bothered to lay in a pour hole, sprues for air venting, or even mold keys - but I can! I'd just want a larger mold box to give me plenty of space to do that, which I have not set up here. This pour is set up for a uber simple one sided open mold. It is otherwise about ready to pour plaster or rubber. If I did this in plaster I'd want to make a rubber mold of my plaster mold before I started production so I can pour however additional plaster molds I might want or need in the future. Another option is I can pour rubber now and skip the plaster. I can still use an open backed one sided rubber mold to cast a single flat resin. I pull that out, clean it up and fine tune anything I like, even adding more sculpting in epoxy if needed. I can get away with undercuts and very thin areas if it's going to be rubber molded for resin production. I can also cast a rubber positive master from that rubber mold, from which I can also go on to make plaster production molds. So there are LOTS options on how to proceed! In my case I want to do BOTH so I have to decide which one I'm going to do first, then go from there.