: Isculpt - Viewing Profile

REALLY??? Apparently I've been wasting time and electricity! I have an old kiln with no fancy computerization, so will someone please tell me exactly what kind of firing speed is safe for 1/4"-1/2" thick earthenware or raku sculpture that has been bisqued, and is being fired with only underglazes or copper carbonate? In other words, I don't have to take into consideration glaze properties. I'm now embarrassed to admit that I spent 7 hours getting previously bisqued work up to cone 04 this week for the underglaze firing! As for the "risky" temperatures, how do you "baby" your work through those? And how fast can the cooling-down process can be without risking injury to the (in my case) sculptures? Boy, this is good news if I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing!
Jayne

Great ideas, thanks! Jayne

I wasn't really looking for items that provide patterned texture -- I have a drawer or two full of those! I've seen sculptural work that looks as if it has weathered for centuries and I wondered what items could be pushed into the clay to give a deeply pitted look. I read about one sculptor who used a power hose to blast his large clay sculptures with water and thus create an ancient weathered look. That is NOT an option in my little studio! (The idea does create some comical mental pictures, though!)
Thanks, Jayne

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I just haven't been forceful enough with my texturing tools. Rice in a stocking, huh? Gotta try that!

My husband's Native American tribe has a several thousand year-old unbroken tradition of pit fired pottery, and they just dig a shallow ditch or even "burn" their pots on the ground in a bed of hot coals left over from a fire built before the pots are added. Their concession to modernity has been to pre-heat the pots in an electric oven before putting them in the coals. (They used to set them near the "pre" fire, then slowly move them in closer & closer as they warmed up.) Out of curiosity, I persuaded my husband to bisque to 06 a pot he'd made from hand-dug and hand-processed clay (instead of using the oven to warm the pot to 500 degrees), and he found that the pot didn't absorb much carbon. Instead of rich blacks, he got dull brownish-greys. So if you do bisque, don't bisque that high. This has been discussed in the forum before, with potters recommending bisquing to as low as 019.

And regarding fear of the fire getting out of control: it's a VERY well-founded fear. I wish I had $20 for every time my husband's Catawba Indian potter grandmother burned down the field beside her house! I've seen a few of my husband's own fires get out of control, and it is a very scary thing. Fire doesn't just run across the ground, it leaps into nearby trees! I wouldn't consider burning without a hosepipe nearby, and I always clear the ground around the area where we build a pitfire. No grass, no leaves, nothing should be within reach of the flames. And it goes without saying that if there is ANY wind, cancel your plans to burn pots and live to burn another day.