Taking a post gardening, pre tomato sandwich lunch break. I've been feeling crappy for over two weeks so I've been behind in my plant feeding which I finally made a big dent in this morning.
I've been using this down time dealing with the loss of two of my 3 stand alone hard drives. The Samsung is totally kaput (no sign of life at all), and Toshiba says I have to format it but won't format and gives me other drive error messages and so far, can't find a fix for it. It's a bit suspicious that this all happened at the same time of some windows and other updates. I'm tired of these badly made, stand alone hard drives and maybe it's time to step it up a notch and spend a bit more money on something with a better track record. How come they can made hard drive for computers that last 3 years or more and can't make stand alone ones that barely make it through a year or less! I might take the Samsung apart and put the drive in a different case and see if I can get it to work. It's never boring with computer hardware in ones life.
I've also been going through glaze books and test tiles and starting a Facebook group called Soda and Salt firing. In two weeks the group has had well over 200 people joining, so I've been putting a lot of soda and glaze information in the folders on the groups Timeline page. Starting this was prompted with me giving up my paid web page a couple of weeks ago, since they no longer support my software, and the fact that I'm not getting any younger and wanted to get a lot of this information out there for others to use and share while I'm still on the planet. So it seemed a good idea to put it somewhere where it could be easily accessed. Other members are also contributing glaze, slip and other soda and salt firing related information which is really great.
I have a similar group on Yahoo that I started several years ago, but Facebook is much more accessible. In fact it was one of the members of my Yahoo group that made the suggestion that I start a group on Facebook. I also like the fact that when a member puts a photo in a post, Facebook automatically puts it in a permanent group, photo folder. And every member can also create perssonal files and folders. It's a good system.
We have no big plans for this somewhat lazy Sunday. I took some of my gumbo out of the freezer for dinner, and we're planning on watching the US Open women's final, and enjoying this laid back Sunday.. Next week I need to batch a couple of cone 6 recipes that I want to test in my little electric test kiln. I'm hoping to find a few that would work as well in cone 6 oxidation as well as cone 6 soda, just in case, I want to continue to do a couple of soda firings a year in that small Olympic kiln.
A couple of days ago I went through all the cone 6 tests tiles that I took with me when we moved; and I was surprised by how many of them seem to be possible candidates for soda firing because of their high calcium, magnesium, barium and/or boron content - the materials that will repel soda if the amount of one or a combination of those is in the 15 -20% range. Of course, the colors will change in the soda, but that's why we test, tweak, and test some more.
When we moved to Oregon, I discarded all of my Cone 10 Reduction and most of my soda test tiles and all of my glaze test batches, so I need to start weighing out new ones. This week I'll get some cone 6 clay and throw new test tiles. I have a few bisqued cone 6 test tiles, glazed or with flashing slips ready to fire, but those are mainly slips and celadons for soda and reduction, and most are on clay bodies not available locally. I'll get some Cone 6 B mix in the next day or two, which seems like the most likely clay body candidate that's available here. The only other one is a P5 porcelain, which probably wouldn't make it to cone 6 -7, and wouldn't be as good a throwing body as the BMix.. The reason I want one of these porcelain type bodies, is that I found that porcelain and porcelain type bodies like BMix and Loafers Glory which I some times used in North Carolina, give the best melt and color response with flashing slips at cone 6 and 7.
I've been using this down time dealing with the loss of two of my 3 stand alone hard drives. The Samsung is totally kaput (no sign of life at all), and Toshiba says I have to format it but won't format and gives me other drive error messages and so far, can't find a fix for it. It's a bit suspicious that this all happened at the same time of some windows and other updates. I'm tired of these badly made, stand alone hard drives and maybe it's time to step it up a notch and spend a bit more money on something with a better track record. How come they can made hard drive for computers that last 3 years or more and can't make stand alone ones that barely make it through a year or less! I might take the Samsung apart and put the drive in a different case and see if I can get it to work. It's never boring with computer hardware in ones life.
I've also been going through glaze books and test tiles and starting a Facebook group called Soda and Salt firing. In two weeks the group has had well over 200 people joining, so I've been putting a lot of soda and glaze information in the folders on the groups Timeline page. Starting this was prompted with me giving up my paid web page a couple of weeks ago, since they no longer support my software, and the fact that I'm not getting any younger and wanted to get a lot of this information out there for others to use and share while I'm still on the planet. So it seemed a good idea to put it somewhere where it could be easily accessed. Other members are also contributing glaze, slip and other soda and salt firing related information which is really great.
I have a similar group on Yahoo that I started several years ago, but Facebook is much more accessible. In fact it was one of the members of my Yahoo group that made the suggestion that I start a group on Facebook. I also like the fact that when a member puts a photo in a post, Facebook automatically puts it in a permanent group, photo folder. And every member can also create perssonal files and folders. It's a good system.
We have no big plans for this somewhat lazy Sunday. I took some of my gumbo out of the freezer for dinner, and we're planning on watching the US Open women's final, and enjoying this laid back Sunday.. Next week I need to batch a couple of cone 6 recipes that I want to test in my little electric test kiln. I'm hoping to find a few that would work as well in cone 6 oxidation as well as cone 6 soda, just in case, I want to continue to do a couple of soda firings a year in that small Olympic kiln.
A couple of days ago I went through all the cone 6 tests tiles that I took with me when we moved; and I was surprised by how many of them seem to be possible candidates for soda firing because of their high calcium, magnesium, barium and/or boron content - the materials that will repel soda if the amount of one or a combination of those is in the 15 -20% range. Of course, the colors will change in the soda, but that's why we test, tweak, and test some more.
When we moved to Oregon, I discarded all of my Cone 10 Reduction and most of my soda test tiles and all of my glaze test batches, so I need to start weighing out new ones. This week I'll get some cone 6 clay and throw new test tiles. I have a few bisqued cone 6 test tiles, glazed or with flashing slips ready to fire, but those are mainly slips and celadons for soda and reduction, and most are on clay bodies not available locally. I'll get some Cone 6 B mix in the next day or two, which seems like the most likely clay body candidate that's available here. The only other one is a P5 porcelain, which probably wouldn't make it to cone 6 -7, and wouldn't be as good a throwing body as the BMix.. The reason I want one of these porcelain type bodies, is that I found that porcelain and porcelain type bodies like BMix and Loafers Glory which I some times used in North Carolina, give the best melt and color response with flashing slips at cone 6 and 7.
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