Well the first of the new (to me) ceramic molds are in. I am having a great time pouring the paper clay slip and my test fire went great. I did some research on cleaning the seam lines and found this
great info, apparently you can bisque fire the slip figure to 018 and then submerge them in water and use sand paper to remove blemishes and seams. 018 takes the kiln up to approximately 1250 degree, which is when the chemical water is removed and the clay is no longer effected by fluid. AND you do not need to worry about toxic ceramic dust because the mold is wet when you sand it. I guess it is not as hard as the standard 04 firing. I am loading the kiln up in 2 days so I will give it a try.
The other cool thing about 018 is that glass slumps at that temperatures too so I will be experimenting with recycled ground glass frit in some home made frit molds. I am using clay pot bottoms with kiln wash. They are smaller than I wanted but they will work for a test and for coasters. I am really getting excited about this fall.
If all my experiment work well I will have new stuff for the October
Kraftworks.
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