Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Extruding Test Tiles

To speed things up a little, I made a wooden dye for my pug mill for extruding test tiles.And in less than the time it took to clean it, I had about 70 southstone tiles cut and drying. I am planing 2 consecutive firings,both using straight canola oil, one in oxidation the following in reduction with 30 glazes on 2 stoneware bodies white and buff.About 60 tests in each firing in all.
I have been blogging for 1 year now, its made a great visual diary and it definitely helps steer a course.Mainly this year I have extensively tested a  batch of glaze materials, prepared a terracotta clay body,that will be a year old by the spring, building and firing kilns and... pottery stuff in general. Its been good times.

T shaped extruder dye, made out of plywood and placed inside the nozzle of a small home made pug mill.

Rapid fire test tiles.


Not a bad winters day. 12 degrees cel. approx.

Firing a minigama kiln.These wee kilns really rock and use the same principles as bigger kilns.A good way to spend an afternoon. Looking forward to more of this and have always wanted to scale one of these up.



Orange and black.Now that's an atmosphere.


2 comments:

Peter said...

Congratulations of being the owner of a year old blog! Goodness, the time has passed quickly. Really enjoying your blog, and love the mix of great photos, useful technical bits, and other information that you share. Big Thank you for that and, ... one day I really will drop in for a visit!

Danny Holland said...

Cheers Peter, it's been great blogging and seeing just how many people around the world are doing such familiar work.