I just thought I'd share one or two pieces from last weeks raku firings. These bowls will be popping at a couple of events soon- at Chelmsford Museum and at the Bazaar at Firsite in Colchester in the next month or so. They'll be the last for a while before I get back to making, sculpting and throwing once again.
I have just had in one or two orders and enquiries concerning Raku tiles. Making them can drive you to despair- what with their tendancy to warp, crack and shrink! It's amazing how something so simple is in actual fact so hard to make. It's also very difficult to lift a flat object out of the kiln with tongs from a red hot kiln. Well, with some prior experience, I've developed a firing system for tiles now which is now working pretty well. Quite simply, I lay each tile on a flat bed of ceramic fibre. That way each tile is raised slightly off the kiln shelf- and it's then easy to grasp the tile with tongs and drop into your reduction chamber/smoking bin. I stack two or three kiln shelves and can pack in about 20 tiles in one batch - depending on size. I do let the kiln cool slightly before carefully removing each shelf of tiles. I back off the gas- get each shelf of tiles out- then power back up to temperature and repeat till they're all safely out of th
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