Monday, February 13, 2012

Jo’s Dinner set project

Over Christmas there has been lots of busy testing going on. I am making a dinner set for my sister. I also wanted to use a white clay at mid-fired (cone 6). So decided to experiment with combining earthenware and stoneware clays 50/50 to see if I could get a good mid fired clay body. Amazingly I was surprised with the results.

It is definitely possible to combine commercial earthenware and stoneware clays and get a good mid fired clay body.

This is a run down of the clays I combined all results tested well.

Stoneware clays used

1. Keanes 5B

2. BRT

3. Keanes 33

4. Keanes Porcelain

Earthenware clays used

a. Keanes 37 (white)

b. Walkers White E/W

c. Keanes Terracotta

Midfire clays used

d. MFQ

e. Feeneys RM

f. Walkers White E/W

g. Chris' KMFP

Combined clay mixes

4+a = white

2+c = brown

3+c = brown

3+a = light brown

4+d = white

b+d = white

I haven’t finished the shrinkage and porosity tests on the combined clay test but will have that shortly.

In addition to combining the clays I also added stains to the clay bodies and tested construction methods for the dinner set I want to make

This is the results. Cone 6 firing using commercial glazes

Jo's dinner set 201202

The only problem I have relates to the stripped plates, it seems that they warp, this is more likely due to construction methods as that particular clay was a commercial clay not combined with anything…

So the problem I have it to get a stripped effect that does not warp…