Raku Glazing Ceramic Kiln Pottery

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Making Western Raku pottery is a dangerous and hands on endeavor. With proper care and patience many unique and vivid finishes can be achieved. It is is made using a different process than most other pottery. To begin you must use a bisqued vessel and then glaze it. Raku often uses glazes that are specially formulated just for this process to achieve certain color variations. Metallic and clear with “crackle” designs are popular. Although exceptions can be found, most Raku glazes are meant for low heat firing in the 1600 degree area. Upon reaching the desired temperature that the glaze used begins to melt, the kiln is opened and the vessel is removed carefully with tongs. The pottery is can then be placed into a reduction chamber that has been prepared ahead of time. In preparing the reduction chamber a seal-able fireproof container is needed. A metal trash bin will do nicely. The trash bin needs to contain some sort of combustible material for the vessel to be placed into or over. Common materials are sawdust, newspaper and straw. These serve to be ignited when the red hot vessel is lowered into the reduction chamber. Once in the reduction chamber, the searing raku vessel will ignite the chosen combustible material. Once the vessel is in the reduction chamber a lid must be placed over it to contain the fire and smoke that occurs upon contact. The fire and smoke reacts with the glaze to create a very unique and unpredictable effect on the surface of the pottery. This process is called post-fire reduction. Depending on what glaze was used, it can cause such effects as the look of an oil slick, burnished metal, vivid rainbow colors, and all the way over to a horse hair or hay line effect. The vessel can either be left to cool in the reduction chamber or it can be quenched in water. When it is all cooled off it will need a thorough cleaning to remove the

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