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Friday, January 03, 2014

How to make your own cuttle boards for plaster molds



Some good instruction in making cuttle boards in this clip from Ceramic Arts Daily.

I've been spending the morning ordering long life incandescent light bulbs on line. I figure that 20,000 hour life span is a good investment, particularly since they're edging out these incandescent bulbs. Our daughter, who lives in Germany, which switched to the new bulbs last year says that those new bulbs which were supposed to last longer, are not even lasting half as long as the old incandescent bulbs, so I took her good advice and got us a good supply and even got free shipping.

Since we're in something of a drought situation here in Southern Oregon,  and our automatic drip system is turned off,  I spent some time hand watering some of my container plants - one bucket at a time.  Between these unusual below freezing temperatures we've had and the drought, I have a feeling that we may be losing some perennials. Everything is looking pretty stressed. Two of my roses look like they have gone to the garden in the sky; but spring will reveal all.

I'll get a full afternoon in the studio thanks to our Bayou chicken pot pie dinner leftovers. My plan is to weigh out a small bucket of amber glaze, and a small batch of a light green slip. I liked several of the light greens slips I tested, but am finally settling on one with 5% Mason celadon green stain, to play with for a while. Since I'm still not sure how long I'll stick with this earthenware, I'm not making five gallon batches of slip. Three gallons will be enough to dip small things and I can pour or brush it on other pieces.




3 comments:

  1. Strange to hear your daughter's experience. I'm in the UK and most incandescent bulbs were phased out a couple of years back. Our experience with the new compact fluorescents has been pretty good. I'm not sure that they last quite as long as they are supposed to. However in a couple of places where I was constantly replacing the bulbs they do definitely last a lot longer than the old filament ones: in the cooker hood and in an ornamental lamp in the lounge that takes those little golf ball sized ones. In the bathroom the equivalent compact fluorescent wouldn't fit so I ended up with a lamp that has a little halogen bulb encased in a larger glass envelope and those definitely last much longer.

    My main gripe with the newer bulbs is that the technology seems to be developing quite quickly. As a result by the time I go back to the store to get a replacement the designs and the wattages have all changed again. That fancy lamp in the lounge takes five of those golf ball globes. So I forked out to replace them all and bought a couple of spares about five years ago. Well we have used up the couple of spares and now I can't get them any more so the next replacement isn't quite going to match the others. The new style bulbs aren't cheap so I'm loathe to replace all five the next time one goes.

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  2. Our daughter is in Munich, so she either got a bad batch of bulbs, or the one manufactured there are different. I ordered some twenty thousand hour incandescent bulbs on line for a little over $2 a piece. I also ordered a bunch of the ten thousand hour incandescent flood lights as well, so we should be fine for a couple of years. Jim also came home with a bunch of regular life bulbs the other day, so we're in pretty good shape. Those new bulbs are a health hazard if they break, so I'm hoping we can avoid them as long as possible.

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  3. Yes, I understand that they have a microscopic amount of mercury in them which doesn't sound ideal does it? I suspect you'd have to break an awful lot of them in a short space of time for it to do any damage to you though. Fortunately they don't seem to break under normal use, they just stop working. I always take them back to the store when I buy a new one. Partly so that I have it as a guide for what I need to buy, but also so that I can hand them over there for recycling.

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