I have succeeded in sticking to my schedule of finishing all the prototypes for the new designs by today. Well, actually it was supposed to be yesterday, but typically there were some unfinished bits and pieces. Also I had to wait for an emergency tool to be posted over from Brighton, which thankfully arrived this morning.
Today was scheduled for plaster casting, which I have done, but only the first half of 10 two-part moulds. But that’s fine, it’s all ready to go for the second part tomorrow.
Actually I am doing really well. I am very happy that I completed 10 new designs out of 12, as my fall-back plan if I ran out of time was to make fewer, and I have enough now. Also I have churned out a huge number of casts of my original moulds (that I made here last summer) over the last 10 days since arriving. Enough to fill the kiln, which is now on.
My intention had been to remake the original moulds and turn them into two-part moulds, but following a bit of technical knowledge sharing, I decided to stick to using them as they are, because their length could cause problems if slip-cast. Not that they are easy to make. They are so long and fragile that moving them at all in a dry state is very difficult and they break very easily. I have been experimenting all week with different ways of casting them and getting them out of the moulds and into the kiln. I’ve pretty much sussed it now, working with the Royal Copenhagen slip, which reacts very differently to the previous slip I mixed up.
Anyway that helped with my schedule because I did not have to wait until the new moulds have been made to start casting. In other words, I’ve made about a third of what I need already, as long as they come out of the kiln OK… let’s face it, in ceramics anything can happen, and frequently it’s not what you expect!
