More Kiln Stuff and Tiles

Glazing and firing is progressing with some good and some not so good results so far - some of the iffy results are due to firing and some due to glaze choices. Hmmmm, will I ever get this right?! I think that's why I say my favourite part of the work cycle is when my pots are leatherhard.

My Coneart kiln has a 3 zone controller with 3 thermocouplers. For yesterday's firing, I put witness cones in all 3 sections and as I suspected, I have uneven firing - slightly off up top, bang on in the middle and more than slightly off in the bottom. I am guessing it might also account for my controller error that keeps cropping up when I use my cool down cycle. I can program offsets for each of the thermocouplers to compensate for the unevenness but I think I am going to run a Power Test tomorrow to check out how my elements are doing. I am heading off to the big city next week with a planned stop at my Potters Supply outlet so if new elements are in order, now is a good time to get them. Yikes! .... element change out time .... a new experience to be had!

Tile Installation at Kwantlen University Library

Tile works contributed by various artists

On the good news front, I had some good glaze results with tiles.  I made relief tile molds as part of a final term project at university. Some of the molds were used to make tiles for this fantastic two storey installation at the Kwantlen University College library. The project was a thank-you to the college for it's many years of supporting the Fraser Valley Potters Guild (started by Kwantlen ceramic program alumini many years ago) by providing meeting space in the ceramics facility. Third and fourth term ceramic students teamed with FV Guild members to make tiles and molds. Since I belonged to both groups, I had double the fun! Unfortunately I had moved before the big installation took place but I sure was impressed when I finally got to see the finished result!

I'd had some bisqued relief tiles hanging around the studio for ages waiting for glaze. These tiles were made with 3 of the molds from my final school project, which I titled the Sandwave Series. Since I had some small glaze loads this week, I decided to tackle the tiles and get them in one of this week's firings. Now, compositionally the three shown here don't quite work together, but from a 'what if' glaze perspective, I was quite happy. Yeahhh! Now that I have some glaze possibilities to work with, I will have to put more tiles from this series on my in the future to-do list.

Sunday morning electric kiln conundrum

Yeah, I know many of the fuelled kiln afficianados think us electric kiln firers have it easy ... just push a button and wait for the same ol' results. Well, in my experience, limited as it is, I find I am constantly having to monitor and tweak my firings (and btw, I love, love, love my Cone-art kiln and it's Bartlett controller, which allow me the flexibility to make those tweaks). Thank goodness, for this round of glazing, I had the common sense to say "hmm, haven't glaze fired red clay for awhile, maybe I should run some tests first" (see .... old dogs can learn from their past mistakes;)). Last night, after unloading a small load of pots done with no fuss glazes, plus tests for the glazes for the remainder of the pots, I found my normally satin semi mattes were a tad on the glossy side. And one of them, for which I had to make a new batch this go round, isn't even in the same ballpark as far as colour goes. Cones are over as should be. Program ran as usual, minus the now frequent cool down hiccup, for which I have a programmed work around (note to self ... gotta talk to the Bartlett guys). So this morning is going to be spent scratching my head ... was it the load size?, the red clay?, was it the texture accents I added?, should I try an older version of my cool down ramp? .... finally, does it really matter? .. can I work with these results? (there isn't really anything wrong with them, it's just they didn't produce the expected results). The good news ... testing for texture accents were bang on! as were some of the tests for new glazes, an older glaze using an alternative firing schedule, and a new clay trial with all of the above. All yielded some possibilities for the future. I pinch myself sometimes, that I can go to work every day and have this much fun!
... PS ... I'll update this post with pics when I'm done pondering ;)
... PPS .... see Glaze Pics post below ....