Home firing a pot?

[MagiKelly]

I had a thought about making some bits and bobs from Clay but the air dried stuff seems to be not very robust (from what I have read). The temperatures needed to fire normal clay seem beyond domestic oven temperatures and I do not fancy digging a pit in the garden to fire the pots etc naturally.

So is there a cheap and easy way to fire a couple of clay cups and the like? Remember this is just to try out making a couple of things so I do not want to spend a lot of time or money on getting the solution at the moment.

 

[Stew]

Try these:

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/content/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=63

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/content/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=64

 

[MagiKelly]

I saw the pit firing method and although I do have enough sawdust I doubt Karen will let me dig a hole in the garden and have a 3 hour bonfire over it

 

[Toddy]

Anthonio's work and tutorials are excellent but there's another way of domestic firing useful containers.
In excavations in Scotland we sometimes find *rotten pot*, this is pottery that while useful in it's lifetime has not been fired hot enough to finish the process of turning it into a proper ceramic, and it crumbles away with exposure to the elements.
The nearest modern equivalent is Barvas ware which was fired in the domestic hearth and sealed with milk. I've made it and been astonished at just how useful it is.
There's a very fair description of it's construction on this site
http://www.virtualhebrides.com/articles/virtual-hebrides/craggan-pots-hebrides.htm

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[JohnC]

does charcoal in a barbeque container get hot enough?. I've had some success getting steel up to non magnetic temp when making knifes. I don't know the temp for firing pots though

 

[MagiKelly]

Doing a bit of research it looks like Polymer clays (Filo and the like) may be suitable as these can be fired in a domestic oven.

 

[ESpy]

Depends what you want to do with them. Fimo and similar are PVC compounds (that can be hardened in a domestic oven); I feel they tend to leach. Even "fired", they still smell of plasticisers...

 

[Toddy]

Polymer clays can be funny stuff, not all are safe to eat from, though they are easy to use.
Charcoal ought to get the clay up high enough to make something robustly useful, even if not to the 1000oC for stoneware.
We could have a play at Achray???? Eric's not quite fit enough yet to tackle a full on kitchen teach in so we could fill in with this. I can bring clay; getting it biscuit dry enough for firing might be a problem though.

atb,
Toddy

 

[Eric_Methven]

I can bring clay too. If we make simple pinch pots, and get the walls nice and thin (1/4" or so) we should be able to dry them by the side of the fire. If we manage to get them completely dry we can fire them in a trench with a hot burn (think small bonfire) over three hours or so.

If anyone fancies this, and has some old clay plant pots they can bring, these can be used in large broken pieces to place over the pots to protect them from damage when the fire collapses in on itself. It's what I normally use failed pots for, but I don't have any failures at the moment.

Be warned though, if the weather is damp, the pots probably won't dry sufficiently to fire. It'll be nice playing with the clay though. If we can't manage pots, we should be able to make small ornaments or spindle whorls to fire instead.

If I get the time, I'll make up a few pots in advance that'll be perfectly dry and we can do a firing non the less.

Eric

 

[Simon E]

I read once on another site that the way to fire a pot with the least chance of it breaking was to do this.

Readers Digest version

1: Dig a trench to put a decent sized fire in, light a fire and let it burn down to embers.
2: Pour in some saw dust, then place the pots to be fired and back fill with saw dust, including filling the pots with the stuff until there is at least an inch over the pots.
3: Build another fire and light it on top and allow it to burn for a few hours.

This should give you a nice fired pot that will have reached a temp high enough to do the job properly.

http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/containers/pottery/aa/aafiring.html

 

[starfury]

Make sure whatever you fire is dry. As the moisture heats up in the pot being
fired it can make the piece explode. I've used loads of Kimmerigde type
clay to make repro prehistoric pottery, clay dug straight from the ground
and mixed with sand from the same area.

You can fire pots in a normal fire outside, it wont take long. Its something to try
at nightime when you can see the pots glowing orange/red in the embers.

Kinda timeless and stirs your soul

Andy

www.spiritofold.co.uk

 

[woodchips]

My mum told me that when at university studying ceramics she and her friends used to fire pots in a dustbin packed with saw dust, it takes a couple of days to burn apparently, but it is a controlled burn as she did it in the area steps outside her terraced basement flat with no problems or complaints from the neighbours

She told me that it is quite a low temperature firing so the pots will be faily fragile and certainly not frost resistant, should be worth a go. I wouldnt have thought you would have problems getting sawdust from a local wood merchant.

I have been harbouring the thought of fireing a pot in the center of a campfire for some time now, which is what got my mum talking about the dustbin thing, her advice for firing in a campfire was to make sure the piece was in the fire from the start so it could heat up slowly. I was going to do a test run next time I am in the woods with clay from the earth as I spotted a good seam. Should be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[Eric_Methven]

The heating up slowly part is important right enough. I usually make the trench long enough to have two fairly large fires, one at either end. I place the pots to be fired in the middle and get the two fires going. As the pots heat through I scrape the fires inward slowly towards each other so they get even hotter still. Once the fires are nearly touching I spread the coals over the pots and build a great big fire on top. I keep it big for a few hours then let it cool. It'll collapse in on itself a couple of times. I just keep the fire going over it until I think it's done. Best done overnight. The pots will be ready in the morning.

Eric