Saturday, October 27, 2012

Single Firing ---saving time and kiln wear and electricity


Just sharing---I have recently had very good luck glazing and firing greenware (single firing) in my electric Skut kiln.  Held my breath, but it all came out beautifully, no cracks, etc.  FYI, in this firing, used Little Loafer's clay (also one piece of sculpture was Standard brown clay), all cone 5, decorated with my underglazes/and silkscreened underglazes, and then covered with Amaco's HF9 Zinc free clear glaze.  All seemed a perfect fit and boy this sure saves time with no separate bisque firing.  Glazes were brushed on.
I did a two hour hold on front end to be sure all my glazes, etc were good and dry, then fired to Cone 5 at "slow"---this time I refrained from peeking which I have a habit of doing when temp gets about 500, but I waited patiently and was rewarded.

I have been doing this for more than a year now and have had great success with low-fire pieces very similar to these.  I had done smaller jewelry pieces of cone 5 single firing but these are the largest pieces at the higher firing temperature that I have single fired.  I will do the bulk of my work in this way from now on.