Clay Decomposed granite rock

Primary Clay formed and then it stays where it was formed

Secondary Clay clay that has been formed and then moved. Secondary clay has
more impurities

Testing Clay
Plasticity the ability of the clay to be manipulated while it still holds its shape. Roll
out a coil and bend it, if it bends easily without cracking, then it is plastic. If it
doesnt, then we can let the clay age, if you let the damp clay age then it will get
more plastic. You can also add a more plastic clay (finer particle size) to make the
clay more plastic.
Shrinkage Most clays will shrink a certain amount, you want to find one that has
minimal shrinkage. Clay shrinks once as it dries, and it shrinks when it is fired. The
coarser the clay, the less it will shrink. You can add grog (clay that has been fired
and then ground up) to keep the clay from shrinking. You make a 10 cm slab and
then measure after it dries, and then measure it again after it is fired, to figure out
the percentage of shrinkage.
Porosity You want the clay to be porous enough to absorb the glaze. The test for
porosity is to take the clay that has been fired to glaze temp and weigh it, and then
soak it in water over night, and then weigh it in the morning.
Firing Temperature Low fire, Middle Fire, High Fire. You make a little pinch pot
and fire it at each of the temps to figure out what temp is best. You want to protect
the kiln by putting a small clay plate of a tested clay under the pot, so if the clay
melts at the high temperature, it wont get on the shelves.

Clays Types
Fire Clay Very refractory (can withstand a high temperature), if you want to make
bricks for a fireplace or incinerator you would use this. It is coarse in particle size.
Stoneware Not quite as refractory as fire clay, but much more plastic than fireclay.
It is gray in color.
Earthenware Commonly found in nature, it is a reddish brown color (which comes
from a very high percentage in iron oxide, but it also lowers the melting point of the
clay). It tends to be pretty plastic.
Ball Clay (Bentonite) Very plastic, very fine particle size. We cannot use the ball
clay by itself, so we blend it with other materials. One of the materials in glaze
Kaolin The purest form of clay, it is white. One of the materials in glaze.
Slip Clay A clay that is found in nature with all the properties of the glaze. It tends
to have a lot of iron in it. The most famous of this was called Albany Slip.

Clay Body - mixture of different clay
Earthenware 70% earthenware, 20% ball clay, 10% grog. Low fire. Iron gives it
the color, and lowers the firing temperature.
Stoneware 40% stoneware, 30% fire clay, and 20% ball clay, 10% grog. High fire
Porcelain if porcelain is thin enough you can see through it. A lot of the material in
porcelain is glaze material. 25% kaolin, 25% ball clay, 25% silica, and 25% feldspar.
Raku contains a very high percentage of grog (25%). Must be fired and cooled
rapidly.
Sculpture high percentage of grog, must not crack or shrink as it is fired. Sawdust
can be used instead, and it burns out as it is fired. Fiberglass can be used too.
Casting you can use any of the clays and make a slip that you could pour into a
mold. You need to add a deflockia, like a water softener (calgone). You use a plaster
of Paris mold.
Colored clay You take a white clay like porcelain, and add oxides to dye it.
China hard and durable, but not translucent. With China they bisque fire it very
hot, and then fire with glaze at a lower temperature.

Burnishing when the piece is a little beyond leather hard, you rub it with a spoon
to get a shiny surface
Piercing cutting holes in it.
Incising cutting into the piece with the loop tool.
Fluting cutting into the piece symmetrically with the loop tool
Faceting when you carve into the side of the piece to get different sections, you can
use a cheese cutter.
Impressed when you press a design into the wet clay. doilies
Stamping stamping the clay with a small simple design. Often used just as an
accent.
Sprigging when you add some other decoration, like when you make a shallow
mold and press clay into it.
Inlay when you take different clays and press them into the piece.
Trailing like writing on a cake, when you put slip in a icing bottle, and you draw
lines on the piece.
Sgraffito when you have dark or light colored clay, and you brush a light or dark
clay on top (the opposite type of clay), and then you scratch through that layer to
the original clay.
Masking not glazing the entire piece, only certain shapes are colored in
Underglaze a flat, matte glaze.

Glaze a glass coating that goes over the pottery. Makes a cup or plate work better,
and look better.
Silica gives us the glassy look of the glaze, it melts at a very high temperature
Flux lowers the melting point of the silica. High temp flux is feldspar, and the best
low temp flux used to be lead.
Alumina (or clay) Kaolin or ball clay. It works to keep the glaze from running off
the piece; the alumina or clay stabilizes the glaze.
Oxide natural colors: iron oxide, cobalt oxide, copper oxide, and manganese oxide
Stain commercially made, like going into a paint store. When you fire them, you get
the color of that stain.
Temperature most of the time, people will still fire the low, medium, and high fire.
At high fire, some of the brighter colors will burn out
Brushing brushing glaze on
Dipping pouring glaze over the piece, or pouring it inside, or dipping it in glaze.
Spraying spraying glaze on the piece (if the piece is too large or too full of holes)
Pouring pouring glaze over the piece


On the test, the first part will be identification
The second part will be identification of different types of pottery

Low Fire

Sawdust Low fire, fire in the courtyard area (Concrete bricks that make a box with
3-in of sawdust on the bottom, and 3-in on top of that), you have to get the sawdust
hot enough to smolder
Raku looks like sawdust when its not glazed. Its fired hot enough for glaze melt
though. Heat it up in an outside kiln. You crank it up so it fires super fast. Once the
glaze has melted, you take it out with metal tongs and put it into a combustible
material, and cover it to cut off the oxygen (which makes it smolder). If it has the
same glaze but drastically different colors, it is a Raku glaze (usually a copper glaze).
Gets hot enough to get shiny. The glaze will crack on the white. You can check the
bottom to see if it is smoked.
Earthenware Look for the terra cotta color on the bottom. If the bright colors look
like paint, its probably earthenware, the same thing with fine detail. There is also a
white earthenware (make sure this is not porcelain, earthenware will be softer
looking).

High fire

Stoneware glazes are earth tones; look for a toasty brown bottom. There are little
iron flecks that will bleed out of the fire clay and show up on the surface. The colors
on stoneware are muted
Porcelain glazed with celadon (green or light green), which contains a low
percentage of iron. It accents the throw rings. You can do a very elaborate carving
on the porcelain and have it make beautiful contrasting designs when covered in
celadon.
Salt have to use a special, well-ventilated kiln. When you add salt, the salt
vaporizes, and gives the piece an orange peel texture. The color comes from the
color of the clay. Put 15-18 pounds of salt in the kiln, first put a pound of salt in
each brown paper bag and tape them shut. The vapors are poisonous so you have to
wear a mask. The other way is to fill a milk jug with salt, put an air compressor tube
into the milk carton, and use that to spray in the salt.

Reviewing:





4/2/14

fired clay was discovered by accident

The first kilns were dug in the ground and built up.

The kiln is a box made out of refractory material, and you put heat in the box

Fire bricks are made to absorb a lot of heat and withstand a certain temperature

You can put material in the soft brick that will burn out, and the heat is held in air
bubbles.

Salt is very corrosive on the kiln.

The fuels are wood, gas, oil and coal. Gas is probably the most commonly used. Now
there are electric kilns too.

Fiberfax

When you have a kiln that burns, its needs a stack that allows excess heat to vent.

Updraft burners in front or side, circulate throughout the kiln
downdraft kilns opening for heat is in the bottom, you need a chimney to draw the
heat out.

Top loader the top opens to let you load in pots
Front loader the front opens

When you stack the kiln, you stack for the bisque fire. The bisque makes it easier for
the pot to absorb the glaze.

Kiln furniture makes it easier to stack the kiln, this includes kiln shelves and posts.

You can nest and stack rim to rim in glaze firings

If youre firing a glaze, you cant have glaze on the foot or on the parts where lids
meet.

You use a stilt under pieces that have glazed bottoms

Kiln furniture is made of a coating called kiln wash, which will protect the shelf if the
glaze runs and tries to stick to the shelf. With kiln wash, you should be able to life
the glaze off, and then reapply the glaze.


Silica, flux (feldspar), alumina (ball clay, kaolin)

Kiln wash is made of kaolin and silica, theres no flux so they wont melt.


Cones are used to help determine the temperature of the kiln. They are made of
clays and glazes, and they are designed to melt at a certain temperature. You can
only see them once you have enough heat. O22 to O1 are low temps, and then from
cone 1 to cone 14. Cone 6 is stoneware temp.

Low is 1800F, cone O6
Medium is 2100F, cone 4
High is 2300F, cone 9

You set them up in a cone pack, so if youre firing at cone 9.
You would have cone 8, then cone 9 and then cone 10.
When cone 8 starts to bend, you know youre getting close, and cone 9 is your target
cone. You want cone 9 to bend over a lot, and cone 10 to only bend a little.

Electric kilns have little auto shutoff rods, which will melt and turn the kiln off if it
gets way too hot. If the kiln over fires, some of the pots can melt.

Pyrometer is a device that can be built into the kiln. As the temp goes up, it shows
the temperature as a reading. It is a good indicator of how your kiln is working.

Computer Controlled you can punch in the temp you want to fire at, and it should
fire at that temp.

The pyrometer and the computer controlled can tell you the wrong temperature, so
they cant be your only method of determining temperature.


You can control the atmosphere in some kilns, using oxidation and reduction.

Some fireplaces have dampers, so you can change the amount of air that goes into
the fire. When you fire oxidation (controlling the amount of air that the gas or oil is
getting). When you reduce oxygen, you can start to smell the gas and see the smoke,
you may get a lazy flame, and that is the reduction firing, when you fire in reduction,
you get a lot more interesting results of firing.

The Chinese developed a copper red glaze, where the copper reduced its a red
glaze, and where its oxidized its green.


Glaze defects:

Crawing when the glaze separates from the clay pot

Crazing when the glaze and a clay dont quite fit, like the crackling of a white glaze
in Raku. When it is on purpose, its crackling, and when its not its called crazing.
You can rub cobalt into the cracks and fire it again to add more character

Shivering Glaze doesnt fit the clay, and where there is a sharp edge it just cracks
off

Pin Holes on the surface of the glaze you see little holes. The glaze starts to melt
and get a little tacky, and boils like water. It can usually be corrected by slowly
cooling the pot.

Fit You need to have a glaze and a clay that shrink the same amount together in the
kiln

Maturity When the pieces are being fired (like at cone 9), the temperature at
which they are made permanent.