I find turning on the lathe quite therapeutic, this was a simple form to turn and it was a simple mould to create. As the glaze will be around the edges, I wasn’t worried about the seam line.
This was a great time for me to start creating videos of my work for my website as well.
Because I wanted the different hues from the porcelain, while slip casting I varied the time I would keep them in the mould. As the porcelain was already thinned with 20% water, my set time would vary from 10min to 20min. I did come across problems the more I used the mould, the latches broke therefor was hard to get the piece centred and they would cast unevenly. This resulted in a lot of time spent sanding.
The glaze recipe I used was
33% Ferro Frit 2134
33% China Clay
33% Black Stain
I found this glaze very difficult to apply with porcelain because it dries quickly. After the first firing to 1280 I wasn’t happy with the result, they came out very shiny, I think the temperature was too high as my previous test glazes were fired to 1260.
I was happy with the translucency of the piece, I left this in the mould for 10 minutes to get the lightest hue. The bulb was a little bit too long, I will need to purchase shorter ones to have an even distribution of light on the inside
When I tried to reglaze it took a while to try and it was harder to clean the glaze on top of the porcelain where I wanted the light to show through.
lliodavies 