I mentioned before that I wanted to experiment with my firing schedule, to see if I could extend the life of my elements. The plan was to fire to cone 6, with an extended hold time to reach cone 8, rather than firing all the way up to cone 8. My hope is that holding at cone 6 will be less destructive to the elements than firing to cone 8.

Last week I put a cone 8 into the kiln and programmed the DaVinci to fire to cone 6, with a 2 hour hold. I knew I shouldn't need to hold 2 hours, but I wanted to make sure I had ample time for the hold to do its work. At 40 minutes the cone 8 was bent to about 9 o'clock (almost touching), so I used the 'skip step' function in the controller to move on to the controlled cooling that I do with every firing. My hope was that the cone would finish bending in the first few minutes of the cooling cycle, and it did. Perfect cone 8. Everything looked great, with no visible difference between the cone 6 hold and the old cone 8 firings.

I've since done another firing with the cone 6 hold, this time in my small Easy-Fire kiln, with the same results. Perfect. So I'm going to fire this way until this set of elements wears out, and see how long they last.

I've also started using a very useful function in the L&L Dynatrol controller: an Easy-Fire/Vary-Fire combo. On most kilns, if you want to do a controlled cooling, you have to program the entire firing cycle going up and down. With the L&L Dynatrol, you can use the pre-programmed Easy-Fire mode for firing up (same as the 'Cone Fire' mode on other kilns), then have the controller jump over to a Vary-Fire custom program (like the 'Ramp Hold' mode on other kilns) for the cooling cycle. I do a controlled cooling for every firing so that every firing has the same results, no matter which kiln I fire. My large kiln is 4 times the size of my small kiln, so it cools much slower. This makes my glazes a bit more matte in the large kiln, and very glossy in the small kiln. With the controlled cooling there is no difference. I cool at a rate of 250 degrees per hour, down to 1700 degrees.

I finally got one of my sinks installed at home, in the half bath off the kitchen. I mounted it into an oak countertop, and I'm very happy with the outcome. The only problem I ran into was the height of the drain. The piece on the inside of the sink sits up about 1/16 of an inch, so the sink doesn't completely drain. There's always a very small puddle in the bottom. I'll have to make more of a recess for the drain in future sinks. I turns out that sink drains that don't have an overflow (the type required for my sinks) don't have the thin, tapered flare that overflow models have. My bad. I should have done more research before throwing this one. Anyway, I can live with the tiny puddle. It's pretty cool to have a sink that I made in my home.

On April 8, one of the pieces I have for sale on Etsy was featured in the Etsy daily blog listing, which is sent out to thousands of Etsy users every day. This resulted in the most views my page has ever had in one day, as over 1400 people took a look at my work. Free advertising is the best. Thanks, Etsy!

Click here to view the Etsy blog page.

I'm way behind schedule getting all the pots finished from the last few kids' classes and workshops, since the elements on my big kiln went bad. So I'm in the studio glazing on a Sunday night to get caught up. I've finished all the clear glaze, now I have to do all the colors. I might leave those till morning, though. I hear my pillow calling...

The elements and thermocouples on my DaVinci kiln finally wore out. They lasted 20 months, which is pretty good considering that I glaze fire to cone 8. L&L has a 3 year prorated warranty on the first set of elements, so I didn't have to pay full price for the replacements. Installing them was a piece of cake, as expected. It took a little over 2 hours to replace all 9 elements. Gotta love the hard ceramic element holders- no broken brick, and no element pins needed.

I've decided to try out a different firing schedule on this set of elements, to see if I can increase the element life. Instead of firing all the way up to cone 8, I'm going to fire to cone 6, with a hold at the end. The hold time will provide the necessary heat work to reach cone 8. Remember, cones are a function of temperature over time- holding temperature has the same effect as firing hotter. There are two factors that decrease element life- how hot you fire, and how often the elements are switched on and off. My usual method of firing to cone 8 has less switching, but a high maximum temperature. Firing to cone 6 with a hold will allow for a lower high end temperature, but will result in more cycling as it holds temperature. No one has been able to tell me which is worse for the elements, so I'll just try it out and see if my elements last longer.

This is my first attempt at blogging from my Motorola Droid phone.

This pot was fired at Waubonsee Community College in the anagama. 24" tall,
Standard 306 stoneware.

I finally finished up my first set of sinks, and I'm very happy with how they look. My wife and I even decided to put one in our 1/2 bath as part of our impending bathroom remodel. We'll be using the swirl pattern below, but with a celadon green glaze. It should look very nice against the dark wood countertop we'll be using.

   

Both of these are fired to cone 8 in oxidation. The blue sink is a self-rimming type, the other is a vessel sink. Both are 15.5" in diameter. It took a few tests, but I finally settled on using 16 pounds of clay to make one of these. They are thicker and heavier than I would typically make a bowl of this size, to make them a bit more durable. I can't wait to see one installed!

I spend Mondays at home with my two sons. This past Monday my 3 year old was begging to take his nap in my bedroom, rather than in his own bed like he does every day. He even started to carry his blankets and stuffed animals into my room. The more I told him 'no' the more upset he got. After several minutes he finally said "But I don't have any pottery in my room!" So off to the basement we went and picked out a few pieces from the storage room. After placing them on his bookshelves, he climbed into bed without a word and quickly fell asleep. Future potter?

The glaze tile board is done! We finally made sample tiles of all of our class glazes, showing all the possible double-dip combinations:



14 glazes, 196 possible double-dip combos. We discovered a lot of great combinations that we never would have dreamed of trying. For instance, Easter Blue is hideous as a bottom coat, but gorgeous on top of almost everything else. Same for the Dog Breath Yellow. Fun stuff. A special thank you to Chris, Jill, Soko and Linda for all their hard work making the tiles!

Thanks to everyone who has checked out the blog recently. It's been a while since I've posted, and I apologize. Unfortunately, blogging is way down on my list of things to do. Classes and kiln repair have kept me very busy for the last couple of months, which is good. I've also been busy with some new pots, like some new dinnerware designs and sinks. Yes, sinks. I met a guy who has a granite countertop business in the area, and he thought it would be great to have some handmade porcelain sinks at his shop. So I've thrown a few prototypes:

  The two on the right are vessel sinks, which will sit on top of the counter; the one on the left with the wide rim is a self-rimming type, which will sit down into the countertop. My main concern with that one is that the rim might warp in the firing, which will prevent it form sitting flat on the countertop. I'm going to be putting the self-rimming model into the 1/2 bath in my house, to work out any issues before taking any to the granite shop.

 
I've left a second foot ring in the middle around the drain hole to give some strength to that area, sink the drain pipe will be screwed on there. It's a hair shorter than the main foot, so the pot actually sits on the main foot.

A standard vessel sink is 16" in diameter, so these need to be thrown to 18.5" to allow for shrinkage. They are a tiny bit smaller than needed, but will work fine for prototypes. I used 14 pounds of clay for each. I think I'm going to up it to 16 pounds, just so I can make them a little bit larger and a little bit thicker. I would like the rim to be thicker, and I think if the wall is thicker they will be less likely to warp, or slump around the foot. I'll know more once I get these glaze fired. For the sink for my house, I wanted a smaller bowl so I don't have to offset the faucet. I used 12 pounds for that one.

I realized when making these that a typical drain pipe won't work. Most commercial sinks that are not vessel sinks have an overflow feature (that little hole up near the top of the sink), and the bottom of the sink where the drain pipe screws on is very thick, like a couple of inches or more. The drain pipe that works with the overflow sink will not work on my sinks, since they are not anywhere near that thick on the bottom. So I'll need to get a drain pipe without the overflow feature. Not a big deal, but not something I had realized before.

Hopefully these will come out the kiln successfully, and I can move forward with more designs. I'll post again when I fire them.