Reduction Fire Part 2

Well, we didn't get the results that we expected in that reduction fire a couple of weeks ago.  At the right is a picture of what we saw when we opened up the kiln.  Those dark pieces (look at the bottom row) are supposed to be a green ash glaze.  Needless to say, they are not green and that doesn't look like an ash glaze!

We also think that it got hotter than cone 6.  It was definitely hotter on the bottom than the top.  We can tell by looking at the cone packs on the bottom and top shelf.  The cones at the bottom melted more than the ones at the top.  Each pack has a cone that melts at cone 5 temperature, a cone that melts at cone 6 temp, and a cone that melts at cone 7 temperature from left to right.  The left cone should be completely over, the middle on should be bent, and the right one should be just barely bent.  These are way farther over than that indicating that the temperature was high.

Some of the pieces were a pleasant surprise here too.  The blue glaze that Allen and I used a lot of turned a very cool kind of tan color on some pieces.  Normally it ends up being kind of blue gray.  Check out the small lidded casseroles on the top shelf.  Those are Allen's and they look really good.  (They are kind of hard to see since they are in the shadows.)

On the second (from the top) shelf are other examples.  Those are mine, and one of those pieces is really blue and the other is more tan.  This is an excellent example of how two pieces with the same clay and the same glaze on the same shelf can come out looking different.  Stuff like this will drive a person crazy!

So what now?  We are experimenting with the pieces with the unfortunate "ash" glaze.  What can we dip them in to re-fire and make them prettier?  So far, there are several options that are an improvement over how they look right now.  Shoot!  Even re-fired at oxidation with no additional glaze they look better than they did coming right out of the gas kiln.