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URL: Kirsty Kash Ceramics
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Potter goes full DIY and makes her own porcelain
The best thing happens: Failure on the first attempt
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Super white translucent porcelains are expensive, approaching $200/box in some countries! They are tipping point bodies, are difficult to make, and variation in properties is common. The idea of making your own clay body is actually feasible here. Yet one potter, Kirsty Kash, told me this amount of DIY was a non-option, much "too difficult". Some time later, after more issues, she agreed to try, using a recipe similar to L3778D. She weighed out the materials, slurried up the mix using a propeller mixer, finished by blender mixing and then dewatered on a super-clean plaster bat.
By the third batch, the best thing happened: Pieces bloated (blistered)! Why was this good. Because of what happened next: We corresponded about why each material is in the recipe and how using this type of body is "walking the recipe tightrope", understanding and control are needed. The feldspar determines the maturity of the fired product. Simple testing is all that is needed to reduce it enough to eliminate the blisters (and give a little margin for error). The change enabled increasing the kaolin percentage by the same amount. That, in turn, enabled reducing the percentage of veegum (reducing the cost).
Her comment a few days ago was inspiring: "I’m getting to know my material so intimately. I have been learning SO much." When I suggested she might end up buying commercial again she responded: "I just bought large bags of all the materials and plan to keep going. I like having the control and being less reliant on the boxed clay. You’ve converted me!".
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