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Firing Pregnancy sculpture in kiln

Firing Pregnancy sculpture in kiln

Hi everyone,

Today I’m firing the pregnancy portrait sculpture in the kiln.  Just thought I’d share the process with you. :-)  

When your firing a large sculpture it’s very important to give it time to dry out thoroughly (and slowly to prevent cracking).   In order to insure that a sculpture is completely dried, a technique that Heidi Maiers invented is to put the sculpture in a roasting bag, poke a dozen holes in it and then bake in your oven to 180 degrees all day long.  Turn it off at night time and leave it sit.  Keep doing this until the morning you check it, it doesn’t have any water vapor on the inside of the bag.  Then is when it’s completely dry.

Well…. that’s all fine and well. Only problem is that the largest roasting bag wouldn’t fit my pregnancy sculpture.  So…. I had to wait more days and just hope it is dry.  It didn’t feel cool to the touch (which would indicate moisture) so I took a chance to fire her today rather than wait more days.

First I had a little bit of help from my husband to get the sculpture onto the kiln shelf.  We successfully did it together and her she sits on the shelf.

I had to put my timer on to remind myself to periodically turn off the kiln to allow it to “soak” in the heat and slowly raise the temp that way.

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She just fit into my kiln. A little bit bigger and I’d have to use my much larger kiln.

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I peeked through the peep hole and happily saw her face is still there. :-) And I could see some of her body too. As the kiln heats up it will get glowing red. Hopefully the rest of the sculpture fairs as well.

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Hope there isn’t any cracking or limbs broken off but I have hope that she will be okay.

~Tamara

Edit:  Finished Kristy’s Blossom bronze photos here.

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