Firing the Crucibles! 

Imagine how much experimentation and patience it took for our ancestors to come up with the processes not having the internet or even books to research it.

Good and Basic next time when you will be making clay firing add pulverized fired clay to the mix. In Poland we call it "szamot" and it actually create gaps for the air and steam to escape and greatly increase the chance of firing it properly. Furthermore next time you can also make small holes with a needle on either the inner or outer surface it will also decrease the chance of cracking.

Hi, a friend of mine makes replicas of medieval ceramics and I have learned a few things from him. In the first step it helps adding greater amounts of additives to the clay. He uses burned and crushed (Igneous) rocks and has great results. He is able to burn it in a simple campfire by just starting a Fire over it. Because he uses a pit to add more wood he uses a layer of green sticks so that the weight of the wood doesn’t damages the pots. He also gets the Red glowing and holed it there for some time. Over all a firing takes around 4 hours. But we have also just fired some smaller pieces by dropping them in afire for just an hour or two.

Will you grind up the failed pot to use again as part of a new pot? Also why not try using wood ash to mix with the clay? It helps lower the melting point of glass so it should be useful for clay pottery.

Thanks for the content. Hope we get a steady stream of it. During this time in the world

Everyone has failures in their first firing due in large part to a lack of grog - grog that is well supplied by those initial failures. There are plenty of grog substitutes, but grog itself is a cheap byproduct of the waste that firing clay always has (even in modern applications failures occur). Keeping your green ware on your hearth through the winter will let it dry faster and let you warm it slowly without killing yourself with boredom from making it an intentional process that you are watching all the time.

I had been waiting for this. Wonderful

Heating the pottery slow is just about haeting it evenly, to avoid hot areas while nearby/deeper areas are still significantly colder. That would cause tension in the material and would possibly make it crack.

agree with other comments. You need inclusions in the clay, like sand or as suggested coarsely ground particles of other fired pots. Good experiment.

pretty awesome! can't wait to see what you do next :D

You could use the broken pieces as grog, now!

Part of the problem may have been the thickness of your pots. I was taught 1/4 to 1/2 inch was best.

I feel the only problem you made was all the visible cracks in the crucibles before firing, Use water to 'rub' these out for a smooth result. If its cracked thats maybe an airgap that will expand differently and make a weakness.

This is a pretty hot video!

Hope you didn't end up using the one made with sand since you could clearly see holes of light in the cup ahaha

Also, why not make a crucible with handles or pegs so that a stick can hold the crucible and help pour or pull it out of the fire?

Rebar red and super easy to bend? I think you're pretty much around 1500 degrees like you said............ But centigrade

Well well well, dirt man

You need to burnish them when they're leather hard, and find better clay.

why did you not raise the crucibles above the fire and slowly build it beneath more similarly to primitive technologies? or place them at the back of the furnace and light the fire around it?

Please tell temperature in Celsius