It has become a tradition for my husband and I the past few years to spend Thanksgiving day a certain way. I usually do several Raku firings, my husband re-loads some shotgun shells, and then we smoke a turkey breast on the BBQ. My husband helps a great deal with the Raku firings. He sets everything up, lifts the kiln off when I tell him it's time, and again with clean up. What a guy.
Last year my firings did not go so well. A new batch of Tutti Fruti (commercial dry mix) just turned out horrible. It did not behave as expected and I put it on a lot of pieces. It was grey, rough, and very ugly. Re-firing did not improve it. I was disheartened. I put most of those pieces in a box vowing to refire them one more time, adding a glaze with a low melting point to see if I could salvage them.
I fired them again this Thanksgiving. I added a copper luster to most of the pieces, using two different commercial brands. The results turned out quite pleasing. I also employed a trick a fellow potter told me last year. I used a hand held propane torch to touch up pieces after pulling them fromt he reduction container. It burned off the carbon areas that can make a piece look so ugly and added a bit of zip to colors here and there. A bit of a learning curve as I did cause a few pieced to crack by overheating one spot too much.
Overall, I felt redemption. Okay, I dropped a few peices and cracked a couple but I learned a lot and made some really pretty things.
Last year my firings did not go so well. A new batch of Tutti Fruti (commercial dry mix) just turned out horrible. It did not behave as expected and I put it on a lot of pieces. It was grey, rough, and very ugly. Re-firing did not improve it. I was disheartened. I put most of those pieces in a box vowing to refire them one more time, adding a glaze with a low melting point to see if I could salvage them.
I fired them again this Thanksgiving. I added a copper luster to most of the pieces, using two different commercial brands. The results turned out quite pleasing. I also employed a trick a fellow potter told me last year. I used a hand held propane torch to touch up pieces after pulling them fromt he reduction container. It burned off the carbon areas that can make a piece look so ugly and added a bit of zip to colors here and there. A bit of a learning curve as I did cause a few pieced to crack by overheating one spot too much.
Overall, I felt redemption. Okay, I dropped a few peices and cracked a couple but I learned a lot and made some really pretty things.
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