Hmmmmmm

Well I guess I'll start off with the bad stuff - and there was plenty of it I'm sorry to say.

Every firing I seem to report a mix of the spectacular and the disastrous - well here we go again.



There was a lot of this. The galena glaze that I use is very glassy and if slightly hot, or thick, will run like crazy. My own stupid fault, I should have fired these on pips of clay. This pot is for an order, I've made it three times already and it's gone wrong again - booooooo! There were a fair few pots that went brown like this one did too.



Something happened in the front of the kiln that caused bubbling in the glaze. It's not a temperature thing I'm sure, as it was throughout the front of the chamber in hot and cool spots - too much reduction maybe? It seemed fairly oxidised when we were firing - we were very careful to avoid reduction. It appears that the black slip in particular didn't like whatever happened - but the same slip in the back of the kiln was fine - grrrrr. In fact the back was like a completely different firing. If only I knew why. I'll take some of the pots to show Clive and see if he can work it out.

So there we go, more landfill for the archaeologists of the future.



Then there was a lot of this white stuff - something we don't get a lot of in Devon. I couldn't get the car up the hill so had to take it back to the workshop, then walk home. Don't know how Hilary's going to get to work tomorrow - I'm in trouble.

I'll post some pics of the stuff that did work, shortly. It's generally the way things go, that one has to mourn the losses, before celebrating the successes, of which there were quite a few. I just don't know what I have to do to get a 100% firing - give up the naked flame maybe?

Right, that's enough moaning, I'll sort out some pictures of the good ones.