THE CRAFT OF FIRE

On the first snowfall of the... fall (surprise!), I had me some more casting fun in the garage.  I'd like to make a few more good aluminum castings before we wrap up this stage of pyro-history and move on to the Bronze age. I'd like a good salamander specifically, because we haven't made one yet. And we still haven't! This casting session was a bit of a bust, but good times nonetheless.  As usual, we made our plaster molds with sand, then burned out the wax in the toaster oven for a few hours, then continued the burn out in the kiln at around 550º C. Some of these should have stayed in longer because the black soot burns off at a certain point, as you can see here: This time we had new aluminum from an engine casing I found in a back alley - what a find! Crucible with ceramic fibre wrap We went up to 927º but for sure the metal itself wasn't that hot. A little below this temperature I poked it and still felt some thick sections in the crucible. The first time I pour

 Three years ago my daughter and I went to the Humber river to find some clay.   And just last week(!), we finally fired the things we made out of that mud/clay.  It took three years not because it needed to, but simply because... well, time passed and we finally got around to finishing the process. :) There's something nice about doing things only when you want to, and not when you're supposed to. So here we are in 2017, digging up mud near the shore. We didn't make any special effort to find what looked like good clay; we just dug up mud to see how it would work.  We had a wonderful day - we saw a mama deer with two fawns, a couple of egrets and a hawk. Who doesn't like playing with mud? Back home, we took the mud we had collected and sieved it to get rid of rocks and other junk material.  And then we drained it and let our 'clean' mud sit in a pail for about... 3 years.  Little seeds started sprouting a short time later. Then in June of this year, we took tha

I let the insulating layer of the oven dry very slowly, often covering it with a tarp if it was too hot out, and letting it dry more in the evening. I think it was about a week. I was also thinking about putting a finish on it - some people coat their ovens with plaster, for example. I liked the idea of a simple burnish.  When the mud is "leather-dry," polish it slowly with the back of a spoon and it'll shine. It's quite hypnotic, actually, to polish a mud oven with a spoon. You should try it sometime.     Here you can see the difference in finish. It's also a great way to smooth over any cracks. It turned out quite well, in fact. If I do say so myself. Finally, it was time to inaugurate our new backyard companion with the trial by fire.     And there it is: the mud oven reborn! We look forward to learning all about the personality and peculiarities of this one. And to once again having friends over, to enjoy all the social elements that fire fosters.