: Round2potter - Viewing Profile

I was poking through the studio glaze material supply room looking for some nickel oxide and i stumbled upon a bin of Antimony oxide atop a bin of "tin vanadium"; all of this infront of the Molybendum and Iron Chromate

I am not gonna use the Iron Chromate, no need.

What is Tin Vanadium? all i can tell from googling is that it is purified using zinc for some fancy reason and then it is almost pure, with just a little zinc left over; but would it be pentoxide or something else? Is it soluble in water like iron chromate?

The antimony i know is terribly toxic, as well as the iron chromate, as well as the vanadium to a lesser extent but does anybody know about Molybendum? Or why i cant find any ceramic supplier that carries it? Even the one i found that has erbium, vanadium, antimony and neodynium doesnt have it.

Cheers!

-Burt

Dear all,

I just got for free, an old westby electric kiln.

The bricks look ok, and the coils are intact, but the catch is................. the power cord has no plug on it.

Well it did, but it was hay wired and was a dryer plug, i am like 99% sure this kiln uses a standard plug.

where do i buy a plug to wire in, and how do i do this?

I am anxious to see if this thing works. It little, has 2 coils and 1 switch.
The sitter is a k-10 but i am not sure what the kiln model # is; it is a small little test kiln that says it will hit ^8

model 12W Serial 5019

Any info helps!!!

-Burt

Hey all,

I am in the midst of getting together my stuff for this weekends firing on the beach. I have been doing some research and i think i have decided to scrap the more traditional pit fire and go with a very very basic up draft or possibly cross draft kiln that is to be partially dug out into the ground (on the beach). I am trying to sketch out some quick, easy designs for a kiln/firebox that i can put up and take down easily and quickly.

Hypothetically, if i was using regular red clay bricks or the normal (2.25x4x8 inches) How might i accomplish the task of building the roof??

I was thinking about stacking rings of brick into an octagon, do a few layers then make a hexagon for a few layers and so and so on until the diameter has closed itself off well enough i can stack a chimney straight up for the draft. This would in a sense be a sort of beehive kiln.

Also, has anybody every tried to carry the chimney out and away from the kiln before going up with it? This would almost definitely it be a down draft type but it can have an huge effect on the draft.

I doubt that an arch top would be feasible do to the time and effort required, I have seen some info on ancient greek and roman Kilns and they typically had a central support and a square roof that sometimes had rounded inside corners.
I have seen a lot of DIY wood fire raku kilns (which are my #1 design inspiration) and they all generally use an old shelf as a roof; i don't have a shelf, so i need to make mine from brick.

Should i get some scrap rebar to reinforce the outside walls/corners?

I think i want to try and limit myself to about 100 brick +/- a few for the sake of travelling to and from the beach with a thousand pounds of dead weight.......

I have never made a kiln before, but really look forward to trying this out with good company and a few (too many) drinks around the bonfire.

Any info would be great!

Thanks,
-Burt

Dear all,

I have been taking a few days relaxing at the beach and brought with me a low fire cone pack to see what i can do with a beach fire.

It turned out i got washed out by the tide so i had to move my experiment to the woodstove in my house, not a fireplace, an insulated, high draft, super tall chimney, woodstove.

I had a ^021, a ^018 and a ^012 in the pack, the first 2 came out all blisters and melted while the ^012 was, as my mentor would say, "twitching" or just starting to bend.

I now have a little doodad i made in there now (i used ^10 stoneware clay with lots of grog).

When i get home to my camera i'll snap a few photos.

Has anybody ever done this before?

What kinds of glazes/slips/terra sigilata could i use at such low temperature to make a vessel that will hold water?

Or could just a simple burnishing job do the trick?

So if any of ya'll with pitfiring experience can chime in your 2 cents i would much appreciate it!

-Burt

Dear all,

I have another sorta wierd series of tests i have been screwing around with. Melting Gems!!

At this point i have run about 20 types of minerals through the high fire reduction firing, most of which act as you would expect; they melt or explode!

But a few have seriously confused me, Sodalite will off gas and change color from blue to WHITE leaving its container glazed. This could be fun in a saggar firing!!!

Obsidean, being volcanic glass, melts yielding a gorgeous blue-black glassious puddle/smeer.

The big one that has my mind totally boggled is Oregon Sunstone, which is a gem quality Plagioclase Feldspar.
I got a few little pieces for 25 cents each and run them through the fire in my normal way.
Being a feldspar i thought it would melt, or maybe turn white like other silicates i have tried (quartz, sodalite, agate etc).

To my surprise, it did neither of these things!!!!
They did not blow up, nor crack, but they did change color from a semi transparent yellow to almost a perfect clear!

I talked to a gem hound friend of mine and apparently a lot of rubys and diamonds are "heat treated" to help clarify them before they are cut and sold. Wierd!

Well anyway, thought some of ya'll might think this interesting.

-Burt