Understanding Cone 6 – NCECA presentation 2018

Understanding Cone 6 – NCECA presentation 2018

Understanding Cone 6 – NCECA presentation 2018 On Mar 15, 2018 I gave my first ever NCECA talk. I was part of a panel discussion called Glazes Without Borders, moderated by Matt Katz. My co-presenters Kiara Matos and Peter Berg gave talks about “Copper as...
How to Make a Cone Pack

How to Make a Cone Pack

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.

Temperature vs Heatwork – Why We Use Witness Cones

Temperature vs Heatwork – Why We Use Witness Cones

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…

A Week in the Life of a Ceramics Studio Technician

A Week in the Life of a Ceramics Studio Technician

What Does a Ceramics Studio Technician Do? Since 2015, I’ve been a ceramics studio technician at a community pottery studio. We run 14 classes per week for both adults and children. We also have an open studio drop-in program where 60 registered members can…

A Clay Reclaim Process Using a Pugmill/Clay Mixer

A Clay Reclaim Process Using a Pugmill/Clay Mixer

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.

Getting Clarity with Clear Glazes

Getting Clarity with Clear Glazes

There’s nothing worse than a cloudy clear glaze muddying up your beautiful slip design, screen printed images or coloured clay. How can we make sure our clear glaze is always clear and prevent it from going cloudy? In this article, I’ll explain some of the factors that affect the…

Don’t Skimp on Safety in the Glaze Lab

Don’t Skimp on Safety in the Glaze Lab

Most of our glaze materials come to us in their very basic, unprocessed form.  They are dug out of the ground, impurities may or may not be removed, they are ground into a fine powder, bagged and shipped to our suppliers. Working with these minerals in their raw state poses some health risks.