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Smoking again
Jun. 23rd, 2020 08:48 pmSo I've had these three masks--bear, fox, raven--on the shelf in my studio forever. Finally got around to adding the terra sigillata in April. I finally got them smoke-fired last weekend.
Part of it was weather--every time I had a few days free to set up the firing pit, it rained again. Part was fuel. I found a spilled bag of pellet stove fuel along a back route near the gravel pit last winter, brought it home for smoke firing, but couldn't get the stuff dry. Tried laying it out on a sheet in the driveway in April, but just didn't have the sunshine and low humidity needed to dry the stuff out. Finally took it down to Club Mud, spread it out on the kiln room table during my May glaze firing. Since then it's been sitting in a box, waiting for good weather.
Finally got some last week. So I laid out a pad of brick on the driveway; built up a box about four bricks high, and loaded it up. Buried the masks in sawdust, crumpled newspaper on the top. Lit off the paper, let it start to burn down, then covered the top with a scrap of kiln shelf and let it smolder.
That's the theory, anyway. For some reason, the sawdust just didn't want to catch. Ran through two sets of newspaper, even drizzled a little stale olive oil on it, still wouldn't catch. Finally found a can of charcoal lighter fluid in the shed that did the trick.
Took two full days to burn down completely, I'm fairly happy with the results, though I could have used a little less white on the bear's chin, a little more on the foxes. Wondering whether to hit it with a torch to burn a little of the carbon out. Of course, that means I'd have to find a torch.
Part of it was weather--every time I had a few days free to set up the firing pit, it rained again. Part was fuel. I found a spilled bag of pellet stove fuel along a back route near the gravel pit last winter, brought it home for smoke firing, but couldn't get the stuff dry. Tried laying it out on a sheet in the driveway in April, but just didn't have the sunshine and low humidity needed to dry the stuff out. Finally took it down to Club Mud, spread it out on the kiln room table during my May glaze firing. Since then it's been sitting in a box, waiting for good weather.
Finally got some last week. So I laid out a pad of brick on the driveway; built up a box about four bricks high, and loaded it up. Buried the masks in sawdust, crumpled newspaper on the top. Lit off the paper, let it start to burn down, then covered the top with a scrap of kiln shelf and let it smolder.
That's the theory, anyway. For some reason, the sawdust just didn't want to catch. Ran through two sets of newspaper, even drizzled a little stale olive oil on it, still wouldn't catch. Finally found a can of charcoal lighter fluid in the shed that did the trick.
Took two full days to burn down completely, I'm fairly happy with the results, though I could have used a little less white on the bear's chin, a little more on the foxes. Wondering whether to hit it with a torch to burn a little of the carbon out. Of course, that means I'd have to find a torch.
