I am on tenterhooks and have been for some time but specifically the last fifteen hours or so.
Regular readers (hello) know that, after seven months of waiting, the manufacturer’s kiln engineers finally arrived and put the kiln right, with the exception of the things I forgot to ask them to do because the OH was throwing a wobbly. He is getting increasingly controlling, as his control of his own addiction vanishes. My adoptive mother was very controlling because she was terrified of her alcoholic father to whom the entire family owed a debt of gratitude from saving them from poverty, in the terrible times between the world wars. Controlling people, whatever the cause of their control and narcissism are very good at distracting the rest of us; it is hard to remain focussed when someone is rubbishing you to make themselves feel better.
The kiln is, theoretically, mended after years of being wrong, and, according to the kiln engineers, in peril for several years because the previous, not really a kiln engineer, had put a vital component in upside down, stretching the electrical wires dangerously. This is why he had to put the control knob on upside down, because he’d fitted elements inside, upside down. I think Vulcan, god of kiln owners must have hearkened to my prayers, as the house did not go up in flames and the porcelain did fire, just.
However, learning that you have been loading a potential bonfire, unknowingly, for many years, does as little for your confidence as someone having a go at you. So I loaded the kiln with little tests. Test wire, test glazes, new eye glazes, different stringing loops.
The kiln fired and shut itself off in three hours fifteen, which is about right for new elements. That was yesterday afternoon.
Porcelain is a noble clay, it likes to be left to go clay cold after firing. If you expose it to the cold while it is still cooling down it will develop stress fractures almost anywhere, but especially where the clay body is thin, which, in the case of miniature articulated dolls, is everywhere.
Now it is today (weather follows after this forecast). I went downstairs to the garage at seven o clock in the AM and took my bungs out. When I am certain everything is cold, later this morning, I will open the kiln and retrieve whatever is there.
What will I find?
If it all works I’ll be at this show in five weeks: www.miniatura.co.uk
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