Amazing Pottery

what are the basic technics for clay pottery to be finished in a kilt?

we have a kilt and supplies but we need basic intructions to be able to use it safely and make clay arts with moldings we have we need the mixture directions and do's and don'ts

Public Comments

1. well start with the correct spelling of the oven, kiln there's no t
2. You should be able to wear any apparel you want. If a kilt is your thing go for it. Ha Ha!
3. it's too dangerous to do it like this over the net. go for a ceramic or pottery course where you can get some practical. God bless, gabe
4. Are you planning to make pottery using moulds? Do you have any moulds? Clay moulds are made of plaster. You can buy them or make your own. Better to use bought ones when starting out. This type of pottery is called Slip Casting. To slip cast you use clay slip (runny clay) and pour it into the mould, leave for about 20 minutes (depending on the size of the mould) and then pour out the slip. A layer of clay will attach to the sides of the mould forming your vessel or ornament. Leave it for about an hour to dry and carefully remove from mould. When the object is leather hard it is fettled and cleaned using a knife and wet sponge to smooth rough edges. When bone dry it is fired in a kiln to bisque about 1000c (still pourous stage). You can then decorate with stains, glaze it and then re-fire to melt the glaze. Pots can be made 100's of other ways with solid clay, either on a pottery wheel or hand built. It requires time and passion as there is so much information to learn. You need to love it. A good place to start is a course at night class or maybe a pottery school.
5. For starters its a KILN........a kilt is a dress for Scottish men. Is it gas fired or electric? single phase or 3 phase powered? or is it a wood fired anagama style etc? Youll need to get someone who's clued up about kilns to show you how to fire it up. If its a 3 phase power supply that could cost you around $1500 to get the power supply attached to your home or garage. If its gas fired youll need to hire some giant sized LPG bottles (about 5 feet high each), and then youll need a self aspirating burner set up to feed the flame into the kiln. You need to give more details, dont try to learn kiln firing without having someone there to show you. The main points you must understand are. 1.Thoroughly dry the greenware before firing it (I sometimes leave em for months) 2. You must do a bisk firing (biscuit) once the works are completely dry, this means driving off any dampness and all water that is in the clay. Many clays are 60% water, so if you imagine a thick clay sculpture, some parts are going to be thinner than others. Any water trapped in the thicker parts wont be able to escape if you heat the clay too fast. Small pockets of air also will have steam forming in them and the pressure build up will explode your sculpture. 3 Turn the heat of the kiln up very very slowly, leave it on the smallest flame you can for a few hours at least (leave the door cracked open), then turn the flame up a little more, and wait another few hours, etc. Once the thermo probe has gone over 600C its fairly safe to turn the kiln up to full because all the water will have been well and truly driven off by then. You can soak the items at the higher temps for however long you want to, but basically once clay has made that molecular change to pottery it basically becomes rocklike, and will last almost forever.