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
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…
