Studio Tips

How to Make a Good Kiln Wash to Protect Your Kiln Shelves

Kiln wash is a material that you can paint onto your kiln shelves. It looks very similar to a glaze when being applied. It acts as a barrier to prevent unexpected glaze runs or drips from ruining your shelves. Kiln shelves are made of a hard material that is similar to…

A Clay Reclaim Process Using a Pugmill/Clay Mixer

Studio Tips

If you run a community studio or your personal studio is high production, you probably have a lot of clay scraps to deal with. This article will describe the clay reclaim process we use at the very busy pottery studio where I worked as technician for 6 years.

A Low Tech System for Recycling Clay Scraps

Studio Tips

As clay artists, we’re so lucky that we can reduce the amount of waste we produce by reclaiming or recycling our unfired clay. When we make something that cracks, warps or doesn’t look how we wanted it to, we can reclaim our clay, bringing it back to its original state so…

How to Convert Kaolin to Calcined Kaolin

Ceramic Glazes, Studio Tips

If you have too much clay in a glaze recipe, you might have issues with your glaze crawling during the firing. Crawling is where the glaze pulls away from the clay body due to a combination of shrinkage, poor adhesion and high surface tension.

Are You Mixing Your Glazes Well Enough?

Ceramic Glazes, Studio Tips

Glaze results on the thin side? As a studio technician at a busy pottery studio, it’s my job to mix and maintain 20 different studio glazes. I’m also the one studio users often go to for help when their glazes don’t work out as they had hoped. Every now and then…

The Air Bubble Myth

Studio Tips

There’s a common belief in ceramics that leaving pockets of air in your clay, either due to insufficient wedging or by creating an enclosed form, leads to explosions in the kiln. The belief is often communicated in these ways: “Poorly wedged clay containing air bubbles will explode…”

Temperature vs Heatwork – Why We Use Witness Cones

Firing, Studio Tips

I receive a lot of glaze questions and the first question I generally ask in return is “What did the cones look like?” Knowing whether the kiln was over- or under-fired is important for diagnosing many glaze issues. Sometimes I’m told a kiln temperature in response. But…

How to Make a Cone Pack

Studio Tips

In this post, you’ll learn how to make a cone pack using pyrometric witness cones set into a coil of clay. Cones are important for measuring the heatwork of your firings.

What’s the role of witness cones in a kiln-sitter kiln?

Ceramic Glazes, Firing, Glaze Q&A Videos

Question: Any suggestions for using witness cones when your kiln has a kiln-sitter rather than a controller? I have a small, old school doll kiln and can't create a schedule. All I can control is on, off, length of time. Put witness cones where you can see them during...

What’s the difference between Orton self-supporting cones and large cones

Firing, Glaze Q&A Videos, Studio Tips

Large cones vs Self Supporting cones Question: Orton temperature equivalents - I thought self supporting and large cones were interchangeable, but the table shows slightly different temps for the same rate. How critical are those differences? The Orton Cone Chart can...