Read about my latest tests and experiments
pottery blog
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Cordierite in a clay body for soda firing
I have been starting on a path of exploring high percentages of cordierite in clay bodies. Cordierite is one of the minerals which is commonly used for making kiln furniture, and its a magnesium alumino silicate. I like magnesium, I like alumina, and I love silica so I thought this would be a cool material…
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The second firing of the Vulcan Works Wobbler
Firing two. It took much longer than planned to get to this point, some work on the kiln was very much required and it meant the whole thing had to come down and be rebuilt. Why? Mostly, I wanted a layer of insulating bricks under the floor (which budget did not stretch to 6 months…
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The Clay College Blogs
When I was at Clay College, we were encouraged to contribute to the student blog when we looked after the gallery at the weekend. I seldom wrote; I don’t enjoy writing for the sake of it, but I did write at least three posts. I am republishing them here. I sometimes find them to be…
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The Vulcan Works Wobbler
When I was at Clay College I had costed up the kiln build for little wobbler, and had always imagined that a rebuild of that kiln would be my first soda kiln. The costing was done on the basis of all new refractories, and I started saving up towards that budget as soon as I…
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Soda firing: the intro
It has taken me some time to build up the courage to start to write about the soda firings I have been doing at Clay College in the small test kiln (the descendant of little wobbler, a combination cross draught – downdraught design with one burner). It is hard to say why I have taken…
Callum Forbes 