Where imagination forms.

Raku Classes

Workshops

Open Studio Time

Horsehair Workshop
Saturday, October 8th 4:30 - 7:30pm
$40

We have a great time creating horsehair pottery using techniques taught to us by Linda and Charlie Riggs during their workshops here at Creative Clay.  Everyone had a blast and got some great results.

We'll be doing this again this October.  Instead of the electric kiln for heating the pieces, we'll be using our raku kilns.

Bring four or five modestly sized pieces, we can fit more tall pieces than wide ones, but it is possible to fire on edge.  If you'd rather just bring a couple of bigger pieces instead, that's fine.

The clay should be appropriate for rapid heating and cooling.
We've found that Soldate-60 and Phoenix are quite reliable. Bee Mix 10 and porcelain have both been relatively successful also.

Here are some older pictures, click on any for a larger image.

We brushed ferric chloride onto the burnished bisque ware.

Note that we are all wearing gloves, the banding wheels are covered with tin foil, and there is newspaper spread on the table.

Ferric chloride is quite nasty, and is extremely corrosive to metal.  It is used as a printed circuit board etching solution. We took extreme care.

We placed the pots in one of our L&L electric kilns and raised the temperature to over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

We're not sure how good it is to open and close a kiln at this temperature, so we'll probably use a raku kiln and a pyrometer next time.

After heating up our raku tongs and a soft brick, we turned off the kiln and removed a pot with the tongs, placing it on the pre-heated brick.

It is very important to turn the kiln off.  The metal tongs cannot touch the elements if they are turned on - it might be fatal.

Continue with the Horsehair Workshop pages