You see the finished fountains in the shop but what you don’t see and few people really know about are the processes that get them there. This post is part of a series demonstrating all that and this one is about preparing the pieces for a bisque firing and bisquing them.
What is a Bisque Firing and Why is it Necessary?
Before glazing a piece must be completely dried and made just permeable enough to accept the glaze properly. If not dried enough the piece can explode in the glaze firing from excess moisture expanding rapidly, and if too permeable or not permeable enough the glaze won’t penetrate into the clay body or the clay will soak up too much glaze and not fire well.
Matching Center Pieces To Bowls
Once a piece has been created (wheel-thrown and or hand-built), it is dried, trimmed and ornamented and dried more. It is then ready for the bisque kiln. Before we put them into the kiln we match up the center piece with the appropriate bowl. Custom orders are matched up according to the customers’ requests. The order page on the middle right fountain above is a request for a two spout Piazza in an eleven to twelve inch Arabesque bowl. The others will be for the shop and the center pieces and bowls are matched according to size and the character of each – what fits well and looks right together.
A number is etched into the inside of the center piece and bottom of its bowl and recorded into a notebook to assist in matching them up when they come out of the kiln. (If you have a ThirstyCat fountain you have probably seen a number on the underside of the bowl.)
Loading the Bisque Kiln
A bit tricky this, as too much or the wrong kind of stacking will result in cracks and no stacking will result in a pretty empty kiln. As long as a piece of paper will fit between a piece and anything else, there is enough room but care must be taken when putting a bowl inside another that the weight is not on the walls of the bottom pot.
We then fire up the bisque kiln and heat them to around 1900°f. This takes about sixteen hours to reach temperature and another 12 hours to cool.
Out of the Bisque Kiln and Ready to Glaze
After unloading the bisque kiln, we find (by number) the right center piece for its bowl, put them together and move them along to the glazing process. That post will follow.