There is a possibility that I might just have new stuff for Miniatura. In fact the new stuff should have been the new stuff for the Spring but there was a problem.
Houston, I have an idiot. (Me.)
I did a lot of work to make two new things and a new part of an older thing ready to come out of my head and into reality. I thought a lot, I made many, many moulds, I poured the porcelain and then I went horribly wrong –
I used the wrong wire.
I use wire of thicknesses from string thick, to finer than a hair, to make stringing hooks. My articulated dolls have feet and hands with hooks, which I have made from wire embedded in them. The elastic can go down an arm to a hand, through the wire loop and back up the arm. In this way the doll is internally strung with elastic and can move. The wire has to be made into tiny loops using the very ends of the round nose pliers, the loop ends have to have twirly tails that can be inserted into the wet clay. The wire has to withstand temperatures up to 1200 degrees, which is the temperature at which the porcelain clay shrinks, undergoes molecular change and turns into a sort of stone with embedded wire ends and a loop sticking out.
At least it does if you use the right wire.
If, by mistake, you go into the wrong drawer of the chest of drawers and find a reel of wire which looks like the high temperature wire but is actually a look-alike bought off the Internet, purporting to be the right wire but actually not the right stuff, but the wrong stuff and then use that to make a million stringing hooks which you subsequently bury in all the tiny hands, feet, bodies and heads then
Houston, you have a right cock up.
This will not become apparent until the second firing when the feet, etc, retrieved from the kiln will have loops that disintegrate when touched and completely jigger the kiln so that it no longer works.
And that was February.
Many years ago, nearly sixty firings, I had a problem and called in a kiln engineer who I found on the Internet. He replaced my elements and put the control knob on the kiln upside down. He said it couldn’t be changed and I’d get used to it.
But today the long awaited manufacturer’s kiln engineers arrived, took the kiln to bits and put it right.
I forgot to ask them to change the sensor rod, because I am an idiot and they did take with them my spare kiln which I have never fired. I bought it from a friend and always thought it was a bit dodgy because it had spent its previous life in a wet shed. The kiln engineers confirmed my suspicions, that it was not safe to fire. I can’t use it and wouldn’t sell it, maybe they can take it to bits or put it in a kiln museum or use it for training.
I have spent the last three days pouring porcelain, embedding hands etc. with loops made from the right stuff (from the right drawer). Now I shall spend a few days rubbing down and then, cautiously, fire the kiln but it won’t be until the second firing that I’ll know if it has worked.
Not exactly up and running, not even up and striding. Edging towards success in teeny weeny steps, maybe.
The lesson to be learned is to beware of what you are getting off the Internet. Go to the original source and the trusted name. It is hard to see through the Internet, there is so much of it, but it is worth spending time looking rather than quickly buying wire which you will have six months to regret. It is worth waiting months for the right kiln engineer rather than the one who is good at advertising but can come next week and do stuff that will leave you annoyed for sixty firings, over many, many years.
I will let you know if it all works, and absolutely regardless I will be at Miniatura, maybe with new new stuff, never before thought of or seen. If not still with about a thousand original artist porcelain things to put on the table.
Watch the skies! Or, watch this space! Or watch this website: www.miniatura.co.uk
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