Change of plans take 37

Okay so... the glaze firing that was supposed to happen 2 days ago didn't happen. The weather in true Missouri style decided to change its mind every 10 to 12 hours. It finally settled on being cold and windy neither of which are at all desirable for a glaze firing. The glaze firing went well if a little on the slow side. 13 hours to reach temp. Part of that I think was the way the kiln was packed. The kiln fires so much differently in the winter time with marginal outside temperatures that I am still getting used to it and I haven't quite figured out how to get it packed effectively yet. However I can't complain to much as everything came out fired nicely. In addition the test tiles that I had in the kiln have given me a good bit of information. I didn't expect them to fire all the way, but as they were bisque fired in the first load that fired very low I wanted to make sure that they were completely fired before putting them in a glaze firing.

Starting at the left which was 80% local clay 20% boron I decreased the amount of local clay in each sample by 10 % while I increased the boron by the same amount. 4 being the middle point at 50/50. As you can see 1 and 2 while being thoroughly bisqued did not begin to melt, 3 was just beginning to melt and 4 was more melted than not.

5, 6, and 7 were each melted, 5 was still somewhat milky which means that it wasn't quite hot enough where as 7 was completely melted but not matured. This means that if I had gotten the kiln a little hotter, or held the temp at the end of the firing longer 7 would have been completely matured. As these were in a part of the kiln that fired to cone 06 (right at 1000 degrees C) I suspect that 6 and 7 are going to fire to low for what I am wanting. Although they will give me the ability to fire a select group of pieces as once fired (glazed without being bisqued) in with a bisque load. I don't want to get into the habit of that as I don't have much experience with it and from what I understand it has a pretty steep learning curve. Likewise 1 and 2 probably won't work for what I want as they most likely will need to fire to cone 5 or possibly even 6. Although since I still don't have a reliable clear glaze for those temps again, I may be able to find a use for them. I suspect that my best chance lies with either 3, 4, or 5 with 4 having a slight lead in likelihood.

They will all be fired in the next glaze firing which will be a cone 6 load, but I will fire them in the very top of the kiln where they will only get to about cone 3. This should tell me what I need to know.

In other news I not only managed to get some recycle started, I even managed to get in today and get some of it started drying. Its only about 15 pounds worth but its a start, and with somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds still waiting every little bit helps.

And finally, I have after much thought, soul searching and mental turmoil decided to get an Etsy shop. I have resisted it for a long time. I won't go into the reasons but suffice it to say that they made sense to me at the time. However with the way that the world is going lately, more people are buying online than any other way and as much as this trend makes me cringe.... if I have any hope at all of this being the last winter I spend in KC then I need to go to where the shoppers are. So here now is the one and only time I will do this. I am posting the link to my Etsy shop. If anyone wants it in the future feel free to send me an email or say something in the comments and I will get it to you.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LaughingMoonCeramics

That's it. But it is one more thing that I have to keep up with.

Well I am going to finish getting glaze onto the incense burners now so that if the weather ever rolls back around to being nice I am ready for it. Hope everyone has a great week.