Loading & Firing Reduction with Tom Coleman (Video)
Notes: Getting the best results from cone 10 reduction firing starts with the clay body. You either gravitate toward high fire stonewares, or high fire porcelains. They each interact differently in the reduction atmosphere. It all comes down to "what are you creating out of this material" and "what are you wanting to see when you open the kiln." If you want brilliant copper reds and purples and crisp celadons like Tom and Elaine's work you'll change to Coleman Porcelain. They've done the chemistry for us.
Bisque Temperature Matters Bisque fire Real (kaolin) Porcelain to cone 010. That's all. Porcelain is clean, and a real porcelain is almost glass in it's composition. If you bisque fire it hotter it closes the body off and it doesn't absorb the glaze... We bisque fire Stonewares higher because there's a lot of organic materials in them that need to be burned off before applying glaze. A lot of times, if you put a glossy glaze on a stoneware it crazes. This is only a problem if it's functional ware. Crazing is always a sign of a body and a glaze that don't fit together.
Description: Now you're set up with some important material information. So many times over the years we have people say "I've been firing cone 10 reduction, but I'm not excited about what comes out of the kiln." Then, we say "change to a good, high fire porcelain" they say they won't pay the extra cents per pound. We say "Hey, that's ok. It's a choice."
Reduction Videos: In these 4 videos Tom Coleman starts with all the important information about Loading a Kiln For Reduction Firing. Then, He Fires the Kilns in Reduction for in the second set of videos.