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Hi! First of all, I am very very new to ceramics. Nearly not startet (only made a wall piece for myself), but I have plans to learn and make it my profession. I do know quite a lot of theory by now since I have been crawling Youtube almost non-stop lately. I want to try to make sculptures. So the question is: Is it possible to use wood instead of metal as a frame/skeleton for a ceramic sculpture? I ask because I do not know and can not find out what will happen to wood during firing. Will it expand and crack the piece? That is what I am worried about, you see. If it expands, is it something I can do with the wood to prevent that? I do not have a kiln, so I will fire using alternative methods like pit-fire or saggar or barrel firing, or everything at once. I may use saggars in a pit fire in a barrel, and use charcoal to get the temperature going. I guess that will be how I will fire the pieces. I am totally in love with the surface decoration that is possible to achieve with saggar or pit-fire. I use homemade paperclay. I live in rural Norway (Scandinavia), and here it is impossible to get a variety of clays. Well, it is possible, but the freight cost will be so high, so I really have only two options: Red clay or blue clay. I know it is not called blue clay in the US, but I don't know what you call it. It is blueish grey and fires to a pale yellow. It is a low-fire marine clay, and it is said to be very good for throwing (because it is so plastic). That clay will crack easily, so I hope I can prevent cracking in a non-controllable firing like pit-fire, by use large amounts of paper pulp in the clay. I have not fired a single piece yet, so I really don't know if that is the case. It will be too expensive to buy a raku clay from Oslo and get it shipped up north to the arctics where I live. I tried to process local clay. It does look quite easy on Youtube, but our local clay is not like the "youtube clay". We have this blue clay, and it will not dissolve in water. Some will, and it floates. I does not sink, whatsoever. I managed to process some, and then a bunch of sheeps came and ate my clay, and stepped on it, making a total mess. That was the point i gave up and promised myself that I will never use local clay again. It is a shame, we have lots of it all over the place. Actually it is 25 meters of clay under the ground here. A construction company found that out when they drilled for a foundation for a building block. They did it a few days ago. I might get the clay from the drilling hole. Maybe it is so pure it can be used straight without processing. Hmm, will give that I try. Well, I write a lot of here about nothing. But the original question was about wood as a frame for a sculpture. Is that a good idea or not? I have some artistic plans, you see, that involves wood as a skeleton. So metal is not an option by now. For other type of sculptures I can use metal, but not for this particular kind. I hope you experts can help me with this Kind regards Rune Thomassen