Yesterday, I fired a bunch of old green ware that I had thrown some time ago. I used the small kiln which I had not fired in two years. The kiln sitter did not trip and the kiln got overly hot, ruining (I assume) everything in there and not helping the kiln any either. But, with all failures, I learned a lot:
- The cone that I put in the kiln sitter melted as it should have and the bar it was holding up dropped, but the switch did not fall. I think this was because it had corroded and gotten a bit stiff. I should have checked this before starting the kiln.
- When I thought the kiln should have tripped, I should have checked the switch to see if it was stuck. I could have known long before that it was above the required temperature.
- I should have had a triplet of pyrometric cones that I could have seen through a peep hole, so that I could have checked on the progress.
- I have a pyrometer. I should have had it connected. Stupid. I need to set that up for next time.
- I noticed bubbles in the resulting pieces. When I smashed them open, I found that indeed they did have air pockets in them. This could perhaps be an artifact of insufficient wedging. Perhaps also, no amount of wedging would have compensated for the possibility that I introduced the bubbles while trying to rejuvenate the clay after it had sat for too long.
No comments:
Post a Comment