I am so excited to share that I have solved a two year pinholing issue I have had on my large fruit bowls. Perhaps even you have wondered why doesn’t she sell many fruit bowls? Why are they never posted on Etsy? Why does she only have pictures from one photoshoot with them with her kitten who is already two years old?
I actually love making these fruit/serving bowls! I love using them in my own house, and I love selling them to customers. I HATE, however, firing them. I didn’t have any problems with them until about two years ago when all of a sudden massive amounts of pinholes would develop on the bottom of my pieces — so much so that I had to reglaze the bottoms and re-fire them! This was an expensive proposition because I can only fit 4 fruit bowls per shelf of my kiln (as opposed to like 15 mugs). It costs me around $25 to fire a kiln to that temperature so having to fire them twice, well, frankly, stunk.
So, how to fix pinholing? I was using the same clay body, the same glaze, the same firing temperature and handling the pieces the same as before. I tried changing clay bodies, changing glaze, changing the kiln firing schedule, dancing a kiln god love jig all to no avail. I tried a slow cooling program from Skutt kiln manufacturers, a slow cooling program from a glaze book and still gall darn pinholes.
And then the skies opened and somehow doing research on Coyote glazes for a Leslie Ceramics customer, I found that THEY had a slow cooling program. And GUESS WHAT? IT WORKS!!!!! So, if you do ceramics and want the most awesome kiln firing program in the world go here: Coyote Slow Cooling Program. It overfires your pieces to about cone 6 and a half but it works for me and now I can start making more fruit bowls with confidence. YEAH!
Ramps 5
100/hr to 220 (this preheat ramp is optional)
350/hr to 2000
150/hr to 2200 hold 15 minutes
500/hr to 2150 hold for 15 minutes
125/hr to 1400
