Morgan

Before you add water etc slam the heck out of it on a concrete floor on each side. I order clay by the tons and all the bags of clay feel harder than a rock. Once you slam them it "wakes" up the clay. If it is still too hard, then do the water/bucket method.

I always compress and never dealt with a cracks, but when I switched to Laguna frost it was about half my pieces regardless of shape. It’s known for being picky but this caused me to change a lot. As babs mentioned wedging is key. What really resolved my issue was spending a LOT of time compressing, I mean a lot. Always compress outside > in and force that clay down onto itself in the center. Clearly dry it correctly etc but I have all but gotten rid of the issue but it’s a serious time suck.

It’s not good reclaim if it doesn’t have mold! I’m kidding but part of me wants to think it helps somehow haha

I invested in advanced shelves a few years ago and can’t imagine going back. I ended up getting a mix of a few fulls and halves. I tend to like this as things that are all the same height I use full shelves and then can use half’s when things get weird. That said, if I could do it all over again it’s probably best to just get them all cut in half because why not? Guess it also depends on what you are firing. With the advancers I don’t even think about post placement much. I get them close vertically but beyond that unless I’m mistaken they can’t warp. It’s pretty remarkable how much more work I’ve been able to fire over the 100s of firings so they certainly have paid for themselves and the some. Pretty much ever firing I do I end up with space for one row of spoon rests/plates, whatever, that I never would have been able to fit until I switched to them.

Hard to add to what’s been said but ya apples and oranges. i personally have both. I prefer Shopify but it is totally on you to drive traffic there, seo, marketing etc. Etsy does this for you (rather poorly)…but as Neil points out it is beyond saturated. If you don’t have tons of sales and tons of reviews it’s almost impossible. I did spend a good chunk on Etsy ads to get a small amount of sales and reviews (think like 300 sales and well over a 100 5 star reviews) so now I just let it ride if something sells on there, great, but I don’t care as my focus is on Shopify site. if you do try Etsy spend a ton of time on seo (look at competitors), have great pics, a lot of listings if you can, focus on good titles, tags etc. But again, Etsy is hard now but doable still if your willing to do it well, have a good product and so forth. In the end if I could have done it all over again I would have probably just focused on good content via social media/instagram/fb and invested time and money on meta ads, google ads and just drove traffic to my Shopify store alone and never bothered with Etsy. The vast chunk of my sales are from direct in person markets so that helps me not care so much about online sales…but ya if I never had to do another market I would probably die happy.

This is roughly the schedule I use (temps changed to get heat work where I want on my kiln) https://digitalfire.com/schedule/plc6ds then if you want you can use the same schedule with a controlled cool down if that’s your thing, for my glazes I prefer crash cool.

Whoa! I cannot believe it is that much mainland where you are, just wow!

Also mark I’m living in HI and paying over 40 cents/kwh, it’s crazy.

I kind of got burned by not specifically stating 325 on an order one time (lesson learned) so of coarse they sent the much cheaper 200. For some glazes I could not tell but others were super apparent and 325 gave a superior finish/melt.

Outside of having to test it, wouldn’t it be easier to simply color with oxides/stains etc, your go to porcelain the exact color you are aiming for instead of having to deal with that? Food for thought.

Bumping this on more info the mine has plans to reopen even though it closed for financial reasons, or is this just speculation?

Way too many

Bill that’s correct. I get a fairly perfect cone 6 bend with that schedule. Every kiln is different obviously and the drop down and hold is for clearing up and healing. Here is the post on Tony’s site that gives further info: https://digitalfire.com/schedule/plc6ds

Wait, the mine is set to reopen? I have not heard that yet but good news if true.

I can only speak for my glazes and results but after I started doing a small hold at top for 10m (~2190-2200 depending on kiln load), a drop down to 2085 for 30m all of my glaze issues for the most part are good. I seem to get a nicer finish on both matte and glossy with the hold vs just going to peak temp. This is the digital fire drop and soak (no slow cool) schedule and I have never looked back.