Gerry Grant

Gerry Grant
On The Wheel

Monday 19 October 2020

Can we blame it on Covid 19?

Is it my imagination or is everything that goes wrong get blamed on Covid? Letters getting delivered late, equipment not being put up in the Park, no spare parts?

Our kiln didn't fire properly last night - it didn't reach biscuit temperature. It went high enough to reach the quartz inversion rate- where the molecules in the clay re-align themselves and settle down again. If this does not happen, then when the pots are glazed and fired to the high temperatures, hair line cracks can appear all over them.

 

We can't blame it on Covid..... One of the connections in the kiln had become loose. Gerry thinks he has fixed it, but we'll be doing a test firing tonight without pots in it to see if it works. Then we will re-fire the pots again.

We want to fire them again because the temperature reached meant that when the glaze is applied, it will be too thick - the pots will absorb too much water.....

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