Today's Plan

We have a glaze kiln firing to cone 6 today. There are several Floating Blue pieces in there, and we are trying to fire the kiln at a slower rate than the last time. We candled it for a few hours last night, to dry out the pieces, and then I started the firing cycle at eight this morning.

I'm about to drop into the studio to try to throw a large bowl. I haven't thrown an entire bag of clay for a very long time, probably back in the Phoenix studio, so that would be about nine or ten years. We have a lot of boxes of Standard Clay 306, and I am planning to start working through it before I go back to the 266, at least for the large bowls. I'll need to take a few measurements off of the kiln, so I don't throw something too big to fit inside.

Visiting the Standard Clay site for the above link, I noticed that they list the shrinkage for the clay. When a piece is newly thrown and wet, it is larger than a bisqued or fully vitrified piece. For example, Standard's Brooklyn Red clay shinks 12% at cone four, and 13% at cone eight. I was planning on doing some tests (throwing pieces, measuring them, then measuring again after the piece is finished. I have a ray gun that has been sitting in the garage (made from an old candleholder) for a few years, waiting for me to find a nice piece of wood for the grip. Maybe I'll
make a clay grip for it instead.