Trying out the dresser

As it turns out, this dresser is looking quite good. I has a nice quiet presence.

Biscuit kiln unloading: what have we got???

Moments of truth. There is nothing quite like opening a kiln, especially when using new (to me) materials and I don't know how it is going to behave.

Loading a biscuit kiln

In this kiln I am putting two Pillars of Hercules plates and two Clentrie Farm plates. There is an air of tension...

Review of the plates so far

Second big decorating night - Pillars of Hercules plate

These QR codes weren't working, so we scratched them off.

First big decorating night - Pillars of Hercules plate

Christine decorating a Pillars of Hercules plate

Decorating plate rims

This is where Christine starts to work her magic...

Slipped rims on current plates

The plates I have slipped today...

Slipping the rims of Pillars of Hercules plates

The rims of our plates are to have the name of the clay source written on them. We paint a white clay (ball clay, from Devon) on first then the writing will be scratched through to reveal the dark clay again. This is called sgraffito.

Clays from Fife!

Here are six of the clays we dug and collected from around Fife. It has been dried, slaked down to a creamy consistency, sieved, settled out, dried out and wedged. Now it is resting. From a potters point of view, in terms of workability, plasticity and strength, clay "improves" with ageing or souring. It is normally recommended that clay needs two weeks to sour, but potters in Chine and Japan used to keep clay in this plastic state to pass on to future generations. Clay also improves with being wedged (similar to kneading bread dough) or pugged (similar to passing through a sausage machine).

Plates to date

A selection of the plates to date. Pittormie, Clentrie (Puddledub), Pillars and Easter Kincaple (Seafield).

Test tile glaze firing

There was no difference between once fired tiles and twice fired tiles.

Test tiles fired

All the tiles survived and look good. The differences in colour is less marked now they have been fired. The clays could all be once fired with the glaze, but the structure of the plate (weak because it is flat) makes me wary of doing that, even though I have no problems doing so with the locally dug Easter Kincaple clay.

Making a plate with Pillars of Hercules clay

The process always starts with wedging the clay. With these new-to-me clays, I try to avoid over stretching and I compress the surface with a rubber kidney.

Test tiles into kiln

The test tiles go in the kiln. You can see the lead glaze (brown) and the borax glaze (white). Below this shelf are unglazed tiles too.

Dried test tiles

The variety of the unfired colours of these clays is lovely.

Making test tiles

Test tiles were made of each clay. I made a stamp which had a 10cm raised line on it, so we could check the shrinkage of the clay after drying and firing. One set of tiles were to be raw glazed (once fired), and another sample biscuit fired, glazed and glaze fired. Two glazes were being tested, a borax glaze and a lead glaze.

Drying out clay

Drying out clay