First glaze kiln firing post kiln fixes! Sneak peak of the top. I'm so excited about the calla lilly candle holders in the back and the leaf bowl in the front.


The kiln parts came end of last week. Craig and I spent Thursday night putting it all back together again. He can now officially call himself a kiln repairman. We got the whole thing together and got an error, but he had forgotten to tighten some screws on the middle thermocouple after we had to reposition them once we realized the wires were not all the same lengths. Did an empty firing right away to season the elements and got two perfect hot cone 5 results.

I had everything glazed and ready to go so as soon as I unloaded I reloaded the kiln for its maiden firing.

Look at all the potatoes! Was definitely a good year for potatoes. As always, I was covered in dirt by the time I dug them all up. There are 3 varieties of potatoes in there. A white with white skin, a yellow with red skin, and a purple with purple skin. No I don't remember the names :)
Here they are making a mess on my counter. I have laid them out to dry a bit so I can get the rest of the dirt off.


I also brought in a ton of peppers and one eggplant. This very hot year has definitely been good for peppers.




It was so nice out that I put a table on the deck and glazed outside until the sun drove me in.

Michael Harbidge from Learned Fired Arts recently bought the company that makaes rubber leaves. I love the leaves and have used them in various pots I've made (and upcoming will be making more ceramic trees for the holidays from them).
When he bought the company he got a box of forms from back in the 70s that were other shapes. He did a mystery box a couple of months ago where you could get some of these random other shapes.
This first one I think is Godfather inspired. Why else would you have a horse head - no body. None of the other animals are decapitated, but the horse head is.


This seahorse is cute. I imagine it on the border of pot like a mug or a vase.




I'm not sure what I would do with the many with the drum. To start with, it's huge.




What's also interesting about these is as I unwrapped them I was immediately transported back to my grandparents apartment. Made me super nostalgic. When it was dinner time I was craving quiche. My grandmother was the queen of quiche and I have mastered her recipe. I wasn't really prepared to make quiche though so I had to improvise. Instead of my normal spinach this is a zucchini quiche. It was delicious.

After the last firing I enlisted Craig in helping me replace the elements (electricity freaks me out). I watched the Clayshare video with guest star Drew from Clayscapes so I felt really prepared. The video is fantastic and bonus - they were replacing elements in the same kiln I have. When we opened up the kiln found an issue that was not talked about. Two of my terminals were cracked.




My initial hope was that it was just a superficial crack, but taking the screws out revealed - nope - cracked all the way through




Terminals aren't all that expensive, but I still have no idea what would cause two of them to be cracked. If you know - let me know!
While we had stuff open I checked the thermocouples because that's what Drew said to do in the video. They were in rough shape so before I placed my order I added them as well.
So between the elements, the terminals, and the thermocouples my kiln is getting like a $600 face lift. To be fair, I haven't had to do any kiln maintenance since I got my kiln and I've done almost 100 firings.




While I wait for the parts to arrive I still need to scrape down and re-kiln wash my shelves. Almost all of them have glaze drips after that last disastrous firing.

After the kiln didn't get to temp I didn't have high hopes, but oy this was worse than I was expecting. You'll remember from the last firing that I had a bunch of fern plates with Oribe that I wasn't happy with. Well refiring was not helpful. Three of them cracked, several ran onto my kiln shelf, and the rest still don't have the look I was going for. The only potential left is to practice my kintsugi.

Oribe issues aside - I messed up my egg tray. The red is too red, there was a color I thought was pink that's not and then one color that's just completely washed out. I think I might try to refire (ha I haven't learned) with a coat of something over it to see if I can make it better.
I'm really disappointed in the wave mugs too. I don't know what the Shadow Blue did at the bottom, but I'm worried that refiring would make them run onto the shelf. Maybe with a cookie under it? I don't know. I should probably just make new mugs.

Disappointing, just disappointing. Oh and wait till you hear about what happened when we went to replace the elements in tomorrow's post!

Ok let's start with a few that are good.

Colors for Earth Laurel Green and Maize 2167 Clear Over	Colors for Earth Cabernet, Laurel Green, and Maize with a hint of Florida Orange 2167 Clear Over
Spectrum Butter Yellow x3	Colors for Earth Cabernet, Red Geranium, Bright Violet, and Laurel Green 2167 Clear Over
Mayco Stroke and Coats Jack O Lantern, Sour Apple, Just Froggy, Java Bean	2167 Clear these are going to be little signs for my booth
Mayco Stroke and Coat many Stroke and Coats on the cacti (at least 5 greens), Fruit of the Vine Mayco Weeping Plum x3	Clayscapes Oribe - this is the one I am most happy with of all the leaves
Top Left: Amaco Weeping Plum x3 Top Right: Amaco Sky x3 Bottom: Spectrum Nori Green (this one is actually really disappointing, its just blah army green)	Top Left:Coyote Dragon's Eye x3 Top Right:Coyote Firefly Garden x3 Bottom Left: Amaco Deep Sienna Speckle x3 Bottom Right: Amaco Deep Olive Speckle x3
Mayco Black Fundamentals Wiped back Oribe x3

Ok so those were the good. Now let's talk about the meh. They aren't terrible, but I'm also just not exicted about them for various reasons.

50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....these are just a little streaky	Amaco Marigold x3 - in some of the texture there are little holes on the outside
50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....just a little streaky	Iron Oxide wiped back Amaco Jade x3, not bad just meh
Mayco Black Fundamentals Wiped back Oribe x3 - these just don't pop	Mayco Black Fundamentals Wiped back Oribe x3 - in the one on the right there is a white spot on the top. I'm not sure what it is
Oribe on all of them, two also have the 50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide wash...meh no pop	50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....just a little streaky
50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....more streaks	Various Colors for Earth...this isn't bad just not really my taste

And then there is the bad

50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....BROKEN	50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....CRACK
50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....Double CRACK	50/50 gerstley borate and iron oxide, Clayscapes Oribe....ran onto the shelf and it spat
Colors for Earth Red Geranium, Cranberry, Bright Violet and something else 2167 clear over This is just bad glazing. I might try to add a glaze on top	Clayscapes shadow blue....no clue what's going on at the bottom, one of the handles shivered. I don't know if I can reglaze these without it running on the shelf
Black wiped back Clayscapes Oribe....ran onto the shelf

Ok so the glazing doesn't work, but the sizing is perfect

So I'm a little worried about what's in this kiln. When I was watching the last few minutes waiting to turn off the fan I noticed that the temp was only 2138 and not 2167 like it should be. I knew that I was getting close on my kiln elements, but thought I had another couple of firings before I had to change them out.


Mostly it looks ok, but the two fern plates don't have the usual bluish tint to the oribe. The egg tray is Spectrum's Nori Green and it didn't break over the texture the way it should. I'll have to look closer when I can actually unload the kiln. I am really liking the yellow on the coaster though. That's a new glaze from Spectrum - Butter Yellow.

I couldn't really see the cone pack in the picture so I decided to pull it out. Things you should not do - pull the kiln back out with your bare hands when the kiln is still 300 degrees. I have a nice blister on my thumb. The top definitely didn't get quite to cone 5. I'll likely have to refire a number of things in here :( The good news is that the new kiln elements have arrived so it's just a matter of replacing them. Definitely enlisting Craig's help - I don't do anything eletric.