Thank you so much! I've just done my first pitfire after watching all your videos for the last year! The pots have come out spectacular!! Thank you so much for all the tips and detailed videos on pitfire!!
I have been watching Andy Ward for a few months and had a blast making primitive pottery from my local clays. Your pit fire finishing methods and recipes have been an outstanding bridge for me to evolve to more complex finishes. Your candor and presentation are excellent. I really appreciate it! Thankyou.
I love your trash can fired pieces. Would you share what clay you are using and also what cone you biscuit fire to. Thank you for sharing the wonderful videos.
I found that waxing didn't do some pots justice so I warmed them in the kiln for a few minutes and then wiped them with a rag dampened with denatured alcohol. Worked great and the alcohol dries clean and quickly. I then used silicon spray after an hour or so on those particular pots and it made the colors pop the way I wanted them to.
Yes, it's not always the same polishing material works. I use acrylic spray too on some pots, 2-3 different kinds wax and a sealant, that also can polish.
Yes, in many of my pitfire videos you will find examples of how I create the colors. You can find a playlist with them all here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-STgFcMIPl1s.html
Mikkel -- thank you so much for these videos! My first firing went very well, but 2 of the pots came out very black. They were done in exactly the same way as the others -- foil saggers, etc. Any idea what causes some to go black and not others?
Thanks :-) The black typically comes from carbon from organic materials burning and smoking. So there must have been more smoke close to them, is my guess
Check that concrete sealer chemical makeup. Many of those concrete sealers are just sodium silicate (water glass) which we use to make stretched surface pots. Way cheaper at a big box hardware store by the gallon as opposed to by the pint at a pottery supplier. :-)
If you're sealing the inside with concrete sealant, do you wax the outside before or after the concrete sealer? Just wondering if you do it after whether the water that comes off the sealant gets trapped by the wax or affects it in any way?
Also, to what do you attribute the difference between the 2 pots you show in this video? One is largely blue, the other rosey red. Do you know or is this by chance?