It's been a long hard project but I finally finished it with a glaze firing last Friday, a bisque firing on Saturday, glazing the bisqued pots and firing them Sunday night and packing all the remaining 150 pots and delivering them on Monday night. The St. Patrick's Festival Commission will be selling the pots this Thursday night at the Pancake Supper and at the Arts & Crafts Festival on Saturday and Sunday. They have asked for an additional 50 pots to be sold as souvenirs throughout the remainder of the year but I don't have to rush them and can finish them with 10 or so at a time.

I have posted some pictures of the final 150 finished pots from different angles to provide a scope of what that many pots looks like and for me to look at before I commit to doing this another year.

Well here it is the first weekend in March and it's come down to crunch time again. Last weekend I fired 100 pots on Friday and Saturday nights and this past Wednesday night I had trimmed through 175. Thursday night I threw 12 more pots and on Saturday threw 15 more which would have been enough to have finished out the project. But I left the pots I threw on Saturday uncovered so they would dry faster and I forgot to check on them Saturday night and when I remembered on Sunday morning half if not more wouldn't take the logo stamped on it good enough so I have to trash those and re-throw. I threw 6 more today and will need to throw some more on Monday night.


The goal is to do the final firing on Sunday afternoon so I can deliver them by Tuesday.


I took some pictures of the pots in the various stages of making a pot. From right to left is a row of pots a few hours after being thrown, then a row of pots trimmed and dried, a row of pots bisque fired and finally a row after the glaze firing. The shrinkage of the pots is easily visable in this picture. The pots are thrown at 4 1/2" high and 2 3/4" wide at the rim and after the glaze firing they shrink down to 3 3/8" high by 2 1/2" wide.

Well last week was a fairly productive one. On 1/29 I threw 6 vases, on 1/30 I threw 12 vases, on 1/31 I trimmed 22 and on 2/1 I trimmed 16 and signed and serialized 22. On 2/3 I signed and serialized 16 vases and threw 15 and then on 2/4 I made approximately 8 gallons of the glaze I will be using. I hope this week will be even better.

It has been quite a while since my last posting. Since the last post I did some test throwing in November and again a couple of weeks before Christmas but didn't get down to some real production throwing until January 2nd. It took me a while to get the technique for throwing this little vase consistently and I've made minor adjustments to the vase since it was first selected last summer. Since the 2nd of the month through this past weekend I have thrown 87 vases and have trimmed 26 of those. I also did a test glaze firing yesterday and and I'll see how those turned out tonight. A few weeks ago I started working from 7:00 to 4:00 so that I could get some more hours each week to work on the project. I will try to post more frequently from here on out. This project is due on March 1st and it is probably going to come down to the wire.

I may have finally found a glaze that will give me a good green on the red Lizella clay. A couple of weeks ago I made 4 more test batches of test glazes and this past weekend I fired 4 pots with those glazes plus one glazed with a Warm Jade Green glaze that I have but don't use very often.

There results are as follows:

#7 - Clear Glaze with Chrome and Tin. Clayart member Russell Sheptak suggested that that I try a clear base glaze and add 2% - 5% chrome oxide and maybe some tin oxide to get a lighter green so I did that using the clear glaze I use. This is the glaze I will probably use. The color I am looking for is in the middle of the pot of this test where it had 3 coats of glaze. I will do further testing with it. I got the clear glaze receipe from Patty Caldwell but I don't know where she got it.
Gerstley Borate 50
EPK 17.5
Flint 32.5
Chrome Oxide 5
Tin Oxide 5
SG = 1.39



#8 - Hunter Green. Receipe provided by Colleen Rayner. I reduced the cobalt carbonate to 7.5%. I will try this glaze using 5% chrome oxide and tin oxide as an alternative to the one above that uses the Gerstley Borate.

Dolomite 20
Frit 3134 20
Spodumene 20
Ball Clay 20
Flint 20
Cobalt Carbonate .75
Chrome Oxide 2
SG = 1.46



#9 - Hunter Green. Receipe provided by Colleen Rayner
I replaced the cobalt carbonate with tin oxide. It worked exactly as Miss Lili said it would.

Dolomite 20
Frit 3134 20
Spodumene 20
Ball Clay 20
Flint 20
Chrome Oxide 2
Ton Oxide 2
SG = 1.48

#10 Emerald Green with Soda Ash
I reduced the cobalt carbonate to .375%

Gerstley Borate 49
EPK 19
Flint 32
Soda Ash 2
Chrome Oxide 2
Cobalt Carbonate .375
SG = 1.37


#11 Warm Jade Green - I think I got this receipe from John Hesselberth at his talk at NCECA in Charlotte 2001.

Custer Feldspar 22
Frit 3134 16
Whiting 12
Talc 9
EPK 20
Silica 21
Copper Carbonate 3
Rutile 5
SG = 1.5

Last Saturday I fired two more pots with test glaze. past week The two glazes and the receipes follow. Each pot was dipped so that a part of the pot has one coat of glaze, another 2 coats and another 3 coats.

#4 - Emerald Green with Soda Ash
**Note: This was changed from the original receipe by using
.75 Cobalt Carbonate rather than 1.5.
This test did come out a little greener but it still too dark.

Gerstley Borate 49
EPK 19
Flint 32
Soda Ash 2
Chrome Oxide 2
Cobalt Carbonate 7.5
SG = 1.36



#5 - Hunter Green. Receipe provided by Colleen Rayner
This glaze might work but will I need to do some more testing.

Dolomite 20
Frit 3134 20
Spodumene 20
Ball Clay 20
Flint 20
Cobalt Carbonate 1.5
Chrome Oxide 2
SG = 1.46

This past week I got back to work on this project by creating 4 test glazes and firing them. The four glazes and the receipes follow. Each pot was dipped so that a part of the pot has one coat of glaze, another 2 coats and another 3 coats.

#1 & #2 - Vera's Emerald Gloss Green for dark clay bodies - Modified by Ron Roy
I tested this recipe last January by adjusting the copper carbonate and couldn't get the green I was looking far and actually all I got was blue so I thought I would try ajusting the rutile to see what would happen.

Whiting 3.0
F3134 25.5
Talc 3.0
Custer 25.5
Zinc 3.5
EPK 12.5
Silica 24
Copper Carbonate 3.2
Rutile 1.2

#1 6% Rutile SG = 1.49
#2 0 Rutile SG = 1.37





#3 - Emerald Green with Soda Ash
**Note this is the vase shape I will be using for the 2007 pot.

Gerstley Borate 49
EPK 19
Flint 32
Soda Ash 2
Chrome Oxide 2
Cobalt Carbonate 1.5
SG = 1.39



#4 - Jade Green
Gerstley Borate 50
Flint 32.5
EPK 17.5
Copper Carbonate 4
SG = 1.38