Glass Trailerwhere stained glass art is made

So my first thought was that the clay that I was attempting to fire still had internal moisture that would need to be dehydrated. After a few quick searches on the internet I found that it was suggested to keep the kiln at low temp over night before firing. So last night after putzing around in the shop for a while I set the kiln to 150, vented the kiln by propping open the top and the peep hole and let it go for 12 hours.

I immediately wanted to set the kiln to fire up and bisque fire it. But I wasn’t going to be home today and didn’t want to risk another explosion while it was unattended. I’ll sit down tonight and fire it so I can watch it for the first few hours. After the temperature creeps past the boiling point I’ll feel better about leaving it run.

Hopefully it’s not another clay bomb. I just put a malformed bowl in there so it’s not a huge deal if goes kablooey.

So I recently started playing with clay. I have a kiln after all, so why not?

It has been years since I’ve made bowls, pots, mugs and anything else with clay, so it sounded like fun. I made a small bowl, carved it all up with a pretty design and let it dry for a week.

Last night I was out in the shop and saw it was bone dry finally and put it in the kiln. A few hours later I ventured out to take a peek to make sure everything was going fine when I found this.

Oops. I guess I should’ve fired it at low heat for a while first to make sure there was no internal moisture left.

So until then I guess I just make sure quick crappy bowls until I get it figured out. No point in putting all that time into something fancy when this will be the outcome.

Anyone have some tips for me?