[Ginny C]

I read somewhere that to keep the stilt in the exactly right position on the bottom of a glazed pot while placing it in the kiln you can use glue. Sounds great! But what kind of glue? Will Elmer's type work? Some of my larger handbuilt pieces have warped in the glaze firing because, evidently, I didn't set it down on the stilts just in the right place, due to not being able to see what I was doing!

[perkolator]

i've never heard of this before, but it sounds like it might be handy every now and then on a tricky load. i would guess that a fast-drying glue would be best (CA glue/superglue), vs something that takes a while to hold (drop of elmer's/epoxy) - but any glue should work so long as you get it to cure in the proper spot (the glue's just going to burn out anyways)

[TJR]

Many potters glue their wads on when salt glazing. Just stick a tab of glue on the bottom of the pot and affix the wad. Elmer's white glue is the glue of choice. If you are gluing stilts onto a big piece, the weight of the piece may cause the stilts to bend or warp. Gluing will not help this problem. The glue just burns out harmlessly.
Of course your kiln must be vented to the outdoors.
TJR.

[Rakuken]

Ginny C, on 19 February 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

I read somewhere that to keep the stilt in the exactly right position on the bottom of a glazed pot while placing it in the kiln you can use glue. Sounds great! But what kind of glue? Will Elmer's type work? Some of my larger handbuilt pieces have warped in the glaze firing because, evidently, I didn't set it down on the stilts just in the right place, due to not being able to see what I was doing!

I use a hot glue gun, sets in seconds. Will burn off clean. It has to be dry.

Aloha Ken

[OffCenter]

Almost anything (wax, Elmer's, etc) will work for wads but for the sharp ends of stilts you need something that will form a bead on the end of the point and most importantly something that dries very quickly. Sounds like a job for Glue Gun to me.

Jim

[Marcia Selsor]

If you are firing hotter than your bisque temperature, the pot will shrink and possibly fall from the stilt.
If you use stilts in a glaze firing, try to glaze at the same temperature as your bisque.

For example, when I did crystalline glazes at ^10, I was bisque firing to ^10. I was using information from 1910 or so.
This was back in 1972. I needed to use gum in my glaze application to get the glaze to adhere to the pot. Crystalline glazes run a lot. It is their nature. They required a good fitting soft brick disc with kiln wash. No shrinkage allowed. Once one fell over and the glaze ate a 3" hole in my kiln floor.

Lesson learned: to avoid this type of problem, fire the pot in the bisque to the same temperature as the glaze so it won't move when on a stilt.

Marcia