Beginner question re saggar firing

[Brian_Ire]

Hi All

hope all goes well. I am beginner potter and am mad to try out a small pit firing. I have made up some terra sig and have it bisque fired on some pieces and it seems to have worked. I have also gathered some natural materials to try add to the surface in a saggar to see what colours I can get from them.

My question is re ferric chloride. I am seeing that mentioned a lot as used in firings. Do you have to add ferric chloride to the surface, when doing a pit firing, or will you still get colours on the terra sig piece without it?

Thanks inadvance.

Edited April 18 by Brian_Ire

[Hulk]

Hi Brian_Ire, welcome to the Forum!

We did a pit firing in Wheel I and Wheel II classes, no ferric chloride was used - just pit fire with some smelly biscuits added to the fire*.
The wares came out interesting black, orange, yellow, and baked brown colors...

This article has a long paragraph on ferric chloride safety, and another paragraph on Raku safety:
Natured Inspired Firing (ceramicartsnetwork.org)

Check back, perhaps others with ferric chloride experience will respond...
 

*horses having passed since the last high tide!

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Ferric chloride isn’t necessary by any means. I haven’t done a whole lot of pit firing, but I did a couple back in college. You can get some lovely variations with terra sig on its own, especially if you’ve got a light and a dark colour to create contrast with.

[neilestrick]

Another way to get some great colors is to use salt. Soak wood chips in a saturated salt water, let them dry, then use them in the saggar. It can give great red, yellow, and orange colors.

[Brian_Ire]

Thanks for the advice neilestrick and Callie, much appreciated.