Warm Weather...finally...

Earlier in the week I wrote, "The new hump form is out of the kiln and begging to be used. I'm going to give it a first run this week and if we're lucky...maybe a second attempt" and I was extremely happy with the TWO pieces I made this week...so far! why do I say "so far?" Well, I also said "it should take a couple of days before I can safely remove a piece from the form" and I was wrong. The pieces come off the form the second day and that is great news. We'll still need to wait a week or so to get these pieces dried and into the kiln and that is going to be a challenge. You getting the drift that this is a good cop/bad cop story? The bad bit is that I really REALLY want to see these pieces glaze and on the wall and a week...well a week of waiting will seem like a lifetime.

The slab roller stretches clay as the clay moves through the rollers. When I make the smaller pieces (like the shawl pins), stretching is not a problem and doesn't have a negative impact on the pieces...but on the larger pieces the stretching thing can traslate in warping. With larger pieces I jump through hoops to overcome the stretches.

What do I do? I start with the roller set at 3/4 of an inch thick and then after rolling the clay through the roller I reset the roller to 5/8 inch, turn the slab over and roll it again. The another reset to 1/2 inch and roll it again. Then I turn it over again, turn is 90 degrees before rolling it to the final thickness of 3/8th of an inch. No warping. It takes longer but the product is much better.

All this and prepping for an obvara and carbon painted firing over the weekend...Sunday is most likely. I've been watching the weather and it's going to nice and warm. When I get done with the firing and the pieces are washed, they'll dry really quickly, as in overnight quickly. I'm so tired of waiting for days for the pieces to dry in the cold an ddamp of Winter. Did quite realize that I was tired of Winter until the forecast told me it was going to be warmer. Warmer weather is a really welcomed event.