[HN Gopher] Make Pottery at Home Without a Kiln (Or Anything Els...
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Make Pottery at Home Without a Kiln (Or Anything Else) [video]
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-10-02 00:45 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| ninju wrote:
| Great DIY video
| stavros wrote:
| Wait, so his way of making pottery without a kiln is to... make a
| kiln?
|
| I watched the video without sound, did I get that wrong?
| gruez wrote:
| I think he meant a kiln that you specifically have to buy.
| lancesells wrote:
| It's also not powered by gas or electric, which I think most
| kilns you can buy are.
| jaggederest wrote:
| His method of firing is substantially different enough from a
| standard electric or gas kiln that it's more in tune with pit
| firing, which is what ceramicists call it when you just build a
| hole in the ground and make a fire in it and toss the pots in.
|
| This is, of course, slightly abstruse if you aren't into the
| nitty gritty of it, but suffice to say, if you said his stack
| of bricks on the ground was a kiln, many people would be
| confused.
| stavros wrote:
| Ahh OK, thanks for the clarification, I'm not very up to date
| on pottery.
| jaggederest wrote:
| No worries it's kind of a technical field, with some
| interesting high temperature chemistry, but if you really
| want to capture what our ancestors did thousands of years
| ago, Andy Ward is really a wonderful resource. He does a
| lot of native clay harvesting and very local recreations of
| ancient techniques, sort of "experimental archaeology"
| stuff.
|
| It's not what I do, but I've learned a lot from him even
| with sort of "as unrelated as you can get" ceramics focuses
| (I mostly work in thrown porcelain, with electric firing
| and fancy glazing techniques).
| schaefer wrote:
| A few years back, I worked through some of Andy's paid courses. I
| really respect that he's trying to preserve both the pottery
| culture and the techniques that have been in continuous use for
| thousands of years.
|
| He's run a newsletter for years, and he'll occasionally talk
| about hosting workshops, or traveling to meet up with various
| academics.
|
| He's a very specific kind of nerd, and I love that he has found
| his niche.
|
| ---
|
| In terms of my own pottery, turns out I'm more of a slip caster.
| Much more in line with Kent's channel[1] than Andy's.
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/BEVAidKCbUg?feature=shared
| MrJagil wrote:
| What happens if you put anything wet in that bowl? Doesn't it
| need to be glazed? And how could you glaze it at home?
| silves89 wrote:
| The raw clay wouldn't be vitrified, so it would be porous and
| would seep or leak. A glaze is a glass, more or less, and to
| get the silica to melt you need a flux. There are different
| fluxes for different temperature firings, but suddenly things
| are getting a little more precise. Without substantially
| levelling up the kiln tech and design you'll be at best low-
| fired and probably using lead as a flux. E.g. terracotta and
| earthernware.
|
| Early peoples would have used wax or fats to seal pots like
| these, to make them functional. People do that with modern pit-
| fired pots too, or use other sealants.
|
| I designed and built my own high-fire kiln, but it uses
| industrially made light-weight insulating and refractory brick,
| and gas burners, and I use Orton cones to know when I've hit
| the right amount of heat-work, and a pyrometer to take
| temperature readings. But some brave souls make their own
| bricks, and look at the colour inside the kiln to know when
| they're at temperature.
| Neil44 wrote:
| I used to use an electric kiln to do firings for my partner.
| It was fun working on the process. Our house had a lowish
| supply voltage so I ran 10mm2 cable back to the consumer
| unit, and experimented with the impedance of the elements, as
| we did a lot of quite high firings. I used an electronic kiln
| controller mostly but occasionally verified it against an
| Orton cone. Gas would have been more economical but a bit
| more scary, for me anyway.
| silves89 wrote:
| It's scary for me too! And way less economical in the UK
| than electric. My small electric kiln costs PS5 to fire. My
| big (perhaps 4 times the size) gas kiln costs PS70-PS80.
|
| I'd much prefer firing with wood. But I'm too suburban and
| firing with wood takes much more effort in prep and during
| firing, but it's a pleasant and exciting experience! Which
| gas firing is not.
| itronitron wrote:
| You could put a lot of bones and some salt in there, most of
| the minerals will vaporize and deposit on the clay as a glaze.
| ceritium wrote:
| Does someone know if cooking pottery on a home fireplace is
| possible?
| sam29681749 wrote:
| I don't know personally, but he mentioned in the video that
| some people do it.
| silves89 wrote:
| Normal firebricks wouldn't withstand mid or high fire
| temperatures. They'd crack or melt or both. An iron grate
| wouldn't fare well either. You could probably make
| modifications to the fireplace that could make it possible, but
| that that point you'd probably decide to take the whole thing
| away from your wooden floor/carpets.
| bell-cot wrote:
| DANGER: Most home fireplaces are not
| designed/constructed/maintained for longer-duration fires of
| any serious intensity. If you try to use one as a furnace or
| kiln, you can easily burn down your house.
|
| One of my cousins learned that the hard way.
| Tomrn wrote:
| I tried this with some cheap "low-fire" clay that bought online
| and wanted to make into pots. I tried firing them in my metal
| "stove" style fireplace (these are the iron looking ones that
| are fairly common at least here in the UK) The first batch
| simply exploded in the fire as the clay was not dry enough
| (sounded like I was making popcorn). To thoroughly dry the next
| batch of pots I let them air dry for a week and then 'cooked'
| them in the oven for a few hours. I placed them in the fire,
| and kept it burning for a good few hours feeding in wood fairly
| consistently, although the temp was nowhere near hot enough for
| a 'proper' firing.
|
| It 'sort of' works - the pots are very brittle and not at all
| waterproof. Glazing wont work at those temps so I tried a slip-
| glaze (basically glazing with liquid clay) which at least gave
| the pots a slightly shiny appearance.
| lancesells wrote:
| That seems like a lot of heat in something that I don't think
| is built to get that hot. That said, I know more about ceramics
| than fireplaces.
| RIMR wrote:
| Possible? Absolutely.
|
| Is it a good idea? No, it's an awful idea. You will burn your
| house down.
| busssard wrote:
| Primitive Technology shows this in every second video... he also
| shows you how to harvest the clay...
| https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/
| DaveSapien wrote:
| A life time ago I was a ceramicist among other art things. And
| one thing I love todo was a Seaweed firing. I would say its
| easier than his method, but i can see his to be more convenient.
| All you need for a seaweed firing is a beach with a good amount
| of seaweed.
|
| You start by building your fire with your ceramics in the center.
|
| Placing some kindling, paper, small sticks, a standard camp fire
| type of thing.
|
| Then some dry seaweed on top to make a mound.
|
| Once everything has taken light you can add wet seaweed on top,
| covering the mound.
|
| The idea being, that as the fire goes it drys out the fresh
| seaweed then combusts it. And you keep that cycle going for as
| long as needed.
|
| You can add air tunnels if needed. Windy days are much better as
| you can really get a inferno going in there. I've managed to get
| temp's over 1300 degrees.
|
| Firings can last days for very large ones (size of a truck), my
| longest it about 8 hours or so (size of a office desk).
| blacklion wrote:
| Title: "Without a Kiln" Video: Build a kiln at backyard.
|
| Boo. It is not a solution if you live in multi-store house in the
| center of big city (and small electric kiln IS a solution in this
| case).
| lupusreal wrote:
| Pit firing pottery isn't with a kiln, they fire pottery to much
| lower temperatures.
|
| And yes, not every solution is for everybody... For people that
| don't live in a city, doing this in their backyard is more
| accessible than buying equipment.
| backtoyoujim wrote:
| finding a class that uses a shared space kiln would likely be
| cheaper and more rewarding
| westurner wrote:
| Some pottery kiln places will only fire their own clay,
| which must be to spec.
|
| And safety glasses to handle warm clay that's been heated
| at all in a kiln or a fire.
|
| Looked at making unglazed terracotta ollas for irrigation
| and couldn't decide whether a 1/4" silicone microsprinkler
| tubing port should go through the lid or the side.
|
| Terracotta filters water, so presumably ollas would need to
| be recycled eventually due to the brawndo in the tap water
| and rainwater.
|
| /? how to filter water with a terracotta pot
|
| It looks like only the Nat Geo pottery wheel has a spot to
| attach a wooden guide to turn against; the commercial
| pottery wheels don't have a place to attach attachments
| that are needed for pottery.
|
| Also neat primitive pottery skills: Primitive Skills,
| Primitive Technology
|
| "Primitive Skills: Piston Bellows (Fuigo)"
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=CHdmlnAA010&
|
| "Primitive Technology: Water Bellows smelt"
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=UdjVnGoNvU4&
|
| Megalithic Geopolymers require water glass FWIU
|
| /? how to make concrete planters
|
| But rectangularly-formed concrete doesn't filter water like
| unglazed terracotta
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I agree that the title is click-baity, but the spirit of the
| video is about showing no-budget solutions exist, without the
| need for any specialized equipment. The cheapest tiny electric
| kiln I could find with a bit of quick searching is still over
| 1000 dollars[0]. Which is a much higher up-front cost than
| [checks video] 21 bricks, some sand, a small metal bucket and a
| bag of charcoal.
|
| Also, if your apartment has a big enough balcony where you're
| allowed to put a barbecue, then this approach is just as viable
| as an electric kiln.
|
| https://www.soulceramics.com/products/jen-ken-af3p-15-6-glas...
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| Imagine how upset you'd be if you ordered a kiln on Amazon, and
| you got two dozen bricks and a bucket in the mail. You might be
| tempted to say, "this is not a kiln".
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| PKD approves of this video
| mordae wrote:
| I would go the slip casting route, though.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| For those in a city / apartment / burn ban / etc, there are
| publicly accessible kilns in most major (and some minor) cities.
| Look for places that offer pottery lessons. Depending on the
| kiln, you can rent a specific fraction of it for a firing or pay
| by the piece. Local pottery supply stores will know what kilns
| are available as well.
|
| If you're near a university with an archeology or anthropology
| program, they may offer a partial semester "primitive" pottery
| course. These are a blast and teach interesting techniques for
| building and decorating pottery objects.
|
| If you have access to a park with bonfire pits, you can do your
| low firings there. The primitive pottery class I took ended with
| a combined cookout and firing at a public park a few weeks after
| the end of the class. The prof rented a shelter with a bonfire
| pit.
|
| Pottery is a lot of fun. I made a variety of small pieces before
| I got to fire anything. You don't need a wheel or any specialized
| equipment, just some basic clay and patience. Depending on where
| you live, you can dig your own.
|
| Check out the Great Pottery Throwdown to see mostly modern
| methods of making pottery in a fun, friendly reality show format.
| (Think Bake Off.)
|
| [1] Edited to add "friendly" and Bake Off reference.
| RIMR wrote:
| "Without a Kiln"
|
| _builds a kiln_
| zafka wrote:
| I Have not used one, but I have a friend who has used a microwave
| kiln with success. This is a small specially made container that
| can be placed inside a regular microwave to fire low range clay (
| cone 04 ) or to slump glass. Here is an article that gives a few
| pointers: https://www.soulceramics.com/pages/microwave-kiln-
| things-to-...
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