So, I have a lunch box full of clay from our trip to Chichester Harbour the other weekend. I’ve got no idea what will happen to it when it is fired, it could disintigrate, flop, burn away…..explode! It will have a high salt content, so I am hoping for something interesting.
Salt fumes have a dramatic effect on clay under heat, the sodium acts as a flux and reacts with the silica in the clay body, enhancing it’s colour. At high temperatures, over 1280°C (2350°F), salt becomes an active vapour throughout the kiln interior. This coats and corodes the elements in an electric kiln because a dilute form of hydrochlic acid is given off as a vaporous by-product.
I have made a couple of test pieces, which I will fire in Desmond’s gas kiln. One simple pinch pot and one stoneware body covered with a slip made from the dug up clay……
Stoneware body, with Harbour Slip
Pinch Pot...eyes off that flapjack in the background. (not made by me....I only deal with making things out of mud!!)
View from the Potting Shed 