Holy Mother of Me

When I fall off the wagon. I hit hard. I now have dozens of ceramic molds. What started out as a search for a few cool 70 - 80s / virgin Mary ceramic molds became a new bad habit. I have ordered about 40 new (to me) molds and only one has been broken. As with all buyer / seller relationships, I am more pleased with some ebay shops/sellers than others. I find it hard to gauge size of the finished cast by the photographs and I am appalled by the expense of shipping. I understand that the molds are heavy and that they need to be wrapped, but not 40.00 for a 10 pound mold. I know what it costs and a 25.00 handling fee is excessive.

Here is my advice so far-

• I like the companies that have images of the finished mold.
• I really like the individuals who are moving a few of their extra molds.
• I like the folks who will combine shipping and use a reasonable handling fee.
  
• If the mold looks nasty in the photo it is nasty. I received one with rat poop in it and when I went back to view the image it was right there -- super gross.
• Folks with over 500 molds are buying lots and selling with out ever pouring their molds - expect sporadic quality. I found some great molds at those places but I have also received some super duds.
  
• The shipping adds up.
• Wait for things to arrive so you don't end up with 4 snails and 2 of the same mushroom molds.

I just mixed up my next batch of slip and I am having a blast. The kiln is loaded for a cone 018 firing right now and I cleaned my first soft fire from last week. I snuck a few of my pieces into the last high fire and they look great. I added cobalt carbonate to the slip and love the shade of blue the high fire has. The new batch is green. I may not pour all of my molds in this color. Might be weird or maybe it will look like it already has a patina. I am doing a high fire on Friday and will finally have some pictures of the final products. There are a lot of steps involved in this new bad habit.