Stories
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Then one digs the fingers into the clay at the bottom, until feeling a perfectly smooth spin of the clay, and slowly raises them like a trap door, while at the same time pressing down with the thumbs and palms on the top. The fingers must be rigid like a lathe and where even the finger nails can be used shave off the rough spots. Then one slowly raises off the top with no sudden moves.
Not quite sure how long MaryT stayed. It was until after we got the hot kiln. We used Whobe's small kiln in the mean time. The problem with the new kiln was it would only run on a 220 circuit. We had a 220 Volt Circuit Breaker in the circuit panel but no line to where we were putting the kiln. SusieQ's boyfriend Marko made home-made beer. SusieQ had met an electrician from up the street. He agreed to supply and put in our 220 line for no money, but six quart bottles of Marko's home-made beer. Apparently he was an aficionado. So then we had a big kiln. It had an automatic kiln shut-off but we didn't know how to use it. We would use the traditional method of setting three pyrometric cones which melt and bend at specific temperatures. On the top shelf of the kiln we set three upright cones in clay. The first cone would melt and bend over about a half hour before the vitrification point, the second about fifteen minutes later and the third was the kiln shut-off point. One had to keep checking by pulling a peep hole plug and looking into the white hot heat.
(7 of 10)
Next Page
