Monday, January 12, 2009

A Snowy Day for Molds

We are getting another serious snowstorm today. I am all for more snow, as I like both cross-country skiing and extra cushioning when I wipe out on the ice. You practically needed crampons to get across the yard this past week! I made some Cardew-style bisque molds today while Joe worked on the house and Charley slept. (On another note, Charley may have broken his own record for sleep this past weekend. We went out on Saturday night, and subsequently slept in on Sunday-- aside from rising a few times to check to see if anyone had put bacon or pork chops in his dish, (no dice there) Charley slept from approximately 5 pm on Saturday until 2 pm on Sunday. You would have thought he was the one who guzzled an excessive amount of wine at Cafe Four!)

This is my first foray into bisque molds--I have been using plaster and wood molds, but I thought I would be a Pioneer Potter on this snowy day. I learned (the long, hard, asymmetrical way, of course) that taking lots of time with molds pays off in the long run, so I'll work slowly on finishing them tomorrow.

--C

3 comments:

Ron said...

Hey Christy, This is something I've been wanting to do for ages. Good to see what you have going on. I am sure it is time consuming to get them just right. They will be great once you have them finished.

Michael Mahan said...

Hi Christy and Joe. The ceiling in the previous blog looked quite professional. Nicely done. Well, not quite done yet, but....

A question about your molds. I'm assuming by the picture, you are making clay molds using plaster 'master molds?" If so, then I take it you've made plaster molds using the plaster 'master molds.'

I had a plaster 'master mold' made in Ireland for my large platter mold. He's supposed to get back to me about how to make the molds. I haven't heard from him.

It's a two-piece master, so I'll be pouring plaster into the mold, letting it dry and then separating the two pieces of the master. He mentioned tapping the master with a hammer of some sort.

Any ideas? Online sources to check out?

This is probably too complicated to get into in a blog....

Good luck with renovations, and I'm looking forward to more pictures - especially the Speedo and bikini.

Michael

Joe and Christy said...

Michael,

I'm not entirely sure what kind of molds you are talking about for your large platters. These are single-piece molds. The plaster molds in these pictures are my "master molds" that I made by pouring wet pottery plaster over clay that I had shaped into the inversion of the shape of bowl that I wanted. Confusing to explain, but it's laid out well in Pioneer Pottery. The plaster mold making part is easy; the real art, I have discovered, is in making that intial upside-down clay version of the plate/platter that you want. Hope this helps! I can email you photos, if you like.

--c