Testing, Testing. And More Testing

So I can tell you without a shred of embarrassment that I am still doing glaze tests on the Supernatural mugs! The last one, which was done after a conversation with my old college professor, changed up the firing schedule.

It still failed to provide the proper results.

There's still pitting, giving the surface a pebbly texture instead of the smooth, glasslike look it's supposed to have. My sensei is fairly sure the clay body, itself, is gassing as it's firing, causing the pitting.

While I can likely sell these tests as "seconds," I want to scream. This is incredibly frustrating! I'm accustomed to just being able to fire and everything turns out fine. Having this wrinkle is disheartening.

I have one more test in the kiln right now, cooling. I took the advice of the glaze company and am following their instructions precisely. It's a slow firing to cone 6, which is a lower temperature than the last test. It's also fourteen hours in the kiln.

Just the thought of the electric bill is giving me conniptions!

If this doesn't work, I have one last option: use the clear glaze from the ceramics center and have them fire a test for me. That will go to cone 10, which is nearly as high fire as can be. It's a common temperature for stoneware, and they know what they're doing over there. And although I hope that the test in my kiln turns out great, I know that their cone 10 glaze is more likely to like my clay body.

But just like writing is rewriting, glaze testing sometimes takes multiple tries to get right.

C'est la vie, right?