QotW: What’s the worst ceramic screw up I’ve ever made?

[Pres]

Last week @Kelly in AKleft a post in the QotW pool:

 “What’s the worst ceramic screw up I’ve ever made?”

It’s a tricky one for me to answer. There are so many! If I had to gauge by number of pots ruined in a single go, well, I seem to do that as a matter of course with my own work. Those aren’t screw ups if they help me get the next round right. Okay, yeah, some are just plain screw ups, still an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. In my studio there’s no one to blame if something doesn’t come out right. 

So then I go to other people’s pots I’ve ruined. I’ve blown up a few, enough to know I didn’t want to do that anymore. I’ve disconnected a (poorly attached) handle or two when loading the kiln. Some of those incidents are shared responsibilities, so I can’t take full credit for all the disastrous things I’ve been a part of.

Probably the worst is when I was learning to fire with a digital controller. I was a fresh-from-art-school tech at a community studio. They had better kilns than any I used in college. I was absolutely positive I put the numbers in right. Some how this bisque firing went awfully high. (?!) I had some earthenware pots in there, those came out great. Better than planned, clay was vitreous, the glaze was crystal clear, and fit like a glove. Completely unexpected. Everyone else’s pots, however, had become vitreous too! Cone 6 stoneware, I have no idea how hot that kiln got. I dealt with some unhappy campers that week. We learned how to glaze vitreous pots.

I suspect I fired it to cone 4 rather than 04, though at the time I was convinced it was an error with the controller. Never happened again though. Now that I think about it, it’s a wonder my earthenware didn’t melt all over everyone’s stuff. Could have been much worse! 

QotW: What’s the worst ceramic screw up I’ve ever made?

My worst is a balance between two. . . One was quite dangerous as I was firing a salt load first ever firing reduction with gas. Catenary arch kiln with bricked up doorway. We, my firing partner and I, had bricked up the doorway without enough key overlaps between inner and outer brick layers. In the upper end of the firing, the kiln pressure bowed out the brick door nearly two feet. This was around 3 am, and we were the only ones at the studio. Found two T braces of metal nearby and braced in the doorway. Saved the firing, but then as inexperienced as we were we did not close the damper when we reached temp to throw in the salt. Therefore the firing was quite dry, but still glazed. Second was when loading a glaze kiln, in the HS, I did not double check the pots enough the 3rd year of teaching. Seems a student glazed a greenware piece thinking to meet the deadlines. I did not catch it, and the explosion of glazed greenware went everywhere. 3 shelves down to the floor, glazed shard sticking to brick, shelves and floor. Yeah, weeks of repair.

best,

Pres

[Mark C.]

Two stand out

35 cubic foot car kiln load fell over with greenware rolling it in.-lost most of it. in the 90s

35 cubic foot car kiln fell over during a cone 10 moment wioth 7.0 earthquake -lost most of it in the 80s

small errors -10 cubic foot electric way overfired bisque load threw the whole load in trash bin-not so bad really,5 years ago

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I decided to try and be more mindful of gas usage in the soda kiln I was loading mid January, and not turn the burners on while I was stacking it. Everything was outdoors, so the posts and shelves were all icy to the touch, even though it was a little above freezing. The wadding I was adding to the posts froze in place, so it felt solid enough. However when the kiln was halfway to cone 10, the stack fell over because it thawed and the previously even wadding shifted.

[Min]

Didn't calibrate a kiln with a new set of TC's. Kiln overfired by about 3 cones. Entire load had to be tossed and shelves ground. 

 

 

[Rae Reich]

My biggest kiln disaster was when I left a person who was angry with me to monitor a ^10 firing in our big catenary arch kiln. When it got to temp, he walked away, leaving it to blast until I arrived 6 hours later. Looked in the peephole and saw … nothing! Took a day to cool enough to start unbricking the door. 
Melted hard brick kiln posts, melted wadding, shelves at all angles lodged into pots, pots were slumped together, some pots actually drooled like oatmeal onto other pots and shelves, some just unfolded. The hard brick kiln walls were bubbling brown/black. Amazingly, some of my carved pots survived intact, with only a drool from another pot. 
At least, it was only my pots and not anyone else’s! I still have some as  “reminders”.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Rae Reich

[Min]

I don’t know Rae, think your bad experience isn’t something you messed up on. You are too nice a person to anticipate someone being so nasty.  The rest of us, yeah, we messed up! 

[LeeU]

My worst screw up was generating an emotional wound. I know how to load a kiln properly. The mistake I made was in part due to cognitive deficts (memory/acting on flawed recall) , but also  due to arrogence (know-it-all ism/being over confident). My sister made some pieces in a community class. She was very pleased with her stuff and her pieces were really lovely. She actually hauled the glazed greenware up to NH from VA on her vacation.  One piece was a beautiful tray. My half shelves where I put the tray were not aligned at the same level--one was about an inch higher. I placed the tray with one end of it extending over the gap. My sister asked me if it would be OK that way. I assured her it was fine. She asked several times--I wish she had said she just plain didn't want me to do it. Each time I said it would be fine. I fired it like that and of course it warped and was useless. I have no idea what I was thinking or why I didn't reload the kiln to avoid the situation. I absolutely know/knew better.  The worst of it is we have never bounced back or healed from that, because the loss, the disappointment, was just one more in previous and subsequent other problems afflicting our relationship-still unresolved. Apology if TMI.  And just FYI, I'm OK-I've perfected the art of self-forgiveness when such is essential for my own well-being. 

[Rae Reich]

7 hours ago, Min said:

I don’t know Rae, think your bad experience isn’t something you messed up on. You are too nice a person to anticipate someone being so nasty.  The rest of us, yeah, we messed up! 

Thanx, guys   But, to paraphrase an old Hawaiian saying, “Never turn your back on your kiln.”  It was my responsibility. 

[Russ]

Had 80hrs worth of finished damp greenware on a ware cart rolled by a door. I left that evening and when i came back in the morning everything froze because I didnt close the door properly. Big bummer.

[JohnnyK]

I had a box with about 25 mugs and bowls in it that was sticking out beyond the edge of the shelf it was stored on and while moving things around in the studio, I accidentally hit the box hard enough to knock it and its contents to the floor, destroying every piece...On the upside, my wife got o whole bunch of pottery pieces to put in the bottoms of her planting pots.

[Denice]

I was taking a community sculpture class and decided to make a lions head sculpture for a fountain.  My teacher thought it was so beautiful that we should make a silicone mold of it,  I don't think she knew anymore about it than I did.   I bought the expensive spray separator and sprayed it according to directions and covered the head with several tubs of silicone.  I couldn't get it off,  I asked my teacher what should I do and she said to burn off the silicone in my kiln.  That turned out to be a smokey disaster,  the smoke went up 3 stories in the stair well.  My son and I hung out on the balcony until it cleared up,  I am glad it was dark our neighbors probably would have called the fire department with all of the smoke coming out of a 3rd floor window.   My kitchen ceiling was the only thing smoke damaged,   I prime and painted it the next day,  my husband had was out of town.   I didn't tell him what happened,  he did comment on how clean the house looked when he got home.   I had dusted every inch of it, even the ceilings.  Denice

[Kelly in AK]

Ok, the question’s been out here a while, but I just remembered an epic screwup that makes me laugh and had to share. Not the worst , but probably the funniest. I was loading my kiln, it’s outdoors and dark, so I turned on the flashlight on my phone and propped it up on the bagwall. Finished loading, got the door bricked up, lit the burners and reached for my phone to take a picture. Where’s my phone? Oh noooo!!!

[LeeU]

20 hours ago, Kelly in AK said:

Where’s my phone? Oh noooo!!!

Where is the ha-ha emoji when we need one?  Do please  follow up with what happened!! 

 

[Kelly in AK]

Shut everything down and unbricked the door as fast as I could. There’s a strange kind of panic when you think your phone is cooking. It’s a new feeling. Sure enough it was cooking. When it was cool enough to handle I peeled off the melted gooey case and of course tried to turn it on. Half the screen was gray, the other half looked like nothing happened. I was able to plug it into the computer and back it up, which seemed like a miracle, another new feeling. I went and got a new phone, and all was well with the world. I also ran an extension cord and lamp to the kiln.

Makes me smile every time I think about it. What a dork! Haha!