refiring old pots

I have just bought an old chamber pot made by Royal Doulton for not a
lot of money. I'd love to use it as a planter, but the glaze has
crazed, but not too badly I'm thinking that it's cast earthenware, with
a plain white glaze and no decorations of any kind.. What would happen
if I popped it on stilts and took it slowly up to temperature? Anyone
any idea whereabouts that temperature might be?

I've often come across interesting pots with crazed glaze, but never
been tempted to try this before. Thanks for all your help.

Susie
--
Susie Thompson
If you can't stand the heat, don't tickle the dragon!
to email me, replace deadspam.com with susiethompson.co.uk

Hi Susie, with the accummulation of dust and grim sitting in the crazed
sections(even if it looks clean) of your pot I would say refiring will not
help in any way.

Sam


"Susie" wrote in message
...
I have just bought an old chamber pot made by Royal Doulton for not a lot
of money. I'd love to use it as a planter, but the glaze has crazed, but
not too badly I'm thinking that it's cast earthenware, with a plain white
glaze and no decorations of any kind.. What would happen if I popped it on
stilts and took it slowly up to temperature? Anyone any idea whereabouts
that temperature might be?

I've often come across interesting pots with crazed glaze, but never been
tempted to try this before. Thanks for all your help.

Susie
--
Susie Thompson
If you can't stand the heat, don't tickle the dragon!
to email me, replace deadspam.com with susiethompson.co.uk

On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:11:24 +0000, Susie wrote:

I have just bought an old chamber pot made by Royal Doulton for not a
lot of money. I'd love to use it as a planter, but the glaze has
crazed, but not too badly I'm thinking that it's cast earthenware, with
a plain white glaze and no decorations of any kind.. What would happen
if I popped it on stilts and took it slowly up to temperature? Anyone
any idea whereabouts that temperature might be?

I've often come across interesting pots with crazed glaze, but never
been tempted to try this before. Thanks for all your help.


If you attempt this, I strongly recommend that you go VERY
slow at the start. If it is earthenware, the pot almost surely has
moisture trapped inside it, which will not come out simply by sitting
around at room temperature. If you raise the temperature
too fast, you'll have a lot worse than crazing!

In fact, you might want to use your kitchen oven for this.
Start out with an hour or so on "low" (under 200F) and
work your way up to (say) 350F over a few hours. I used
this approach on a friend's earthenware mug that always
got hot in the microwave. I suspected trapped water, and
this approach indeed "cured" it... at least until the next
time he washed it!

Which brings us to the fact that despite your best efforts
at reglazing, you pretty much have to assume that water
will somehow find a way into the body, which may very well
cause new crazing down the road.

Nevertheless, this might be a fun project and if you take
it slow you don't have much to lose but the pot. As far as
re-firing temperature, I'd keep it under cone 04 if you don't
know anything about the body. If that doesn't heal the
crazing and you are still interested, maybe go to cone 1 or
2 max, watching through the peephole for signs of sagging.

Please report back here if you try this!

Best regards,



Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!

In message , Bob Masta
writes
On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:11:24 +0000, Susie wrote:

I have just bought an old chamber pot made by Royal Doulton for not a
lot of money. I'd love to use it as a planter, but the glaze has
crazed, but not too badly I'm thinking that it's cast earthenware, with
a plain white glaze and no decorations of any kind.. What would happen
if I popped it on stilts and took it slowly up to temperature? Anyone
any idea whereabouts that temperature might be?

I've often come across interesting pots with crazed glaze, but never
been tempted to try this before. Thanks for all your help.


If you attempt this, I strongly recommend that you go VERY
slow at the start. If it is earthenware, the pot almost surely has
moisture trapped inside it, which will not come out simply by sitting
around at room temperature. If you raise the temperature
too fast, you'll have a lot worse than crazing!

In fact, you might want to use your kitchen oven for this.
Start out with an hour or so on "low" (under 200F) and
work your way up to (say) 350F over a few hours. I used
this approach on a friend's earthenware mug that always
got hot in the microwave. I suspected trapped water, and
this approach indeed "cured" it... at least until the next
time he washed it!

Which brings us to the fact that despite your best efforts
at reglazing, you pretty much have to assume that water
will somehow find a way into the body, which may very well
cause new crazing down the road.

Nevertheless, this might be a fun project and if you take
it slow you don't have much to lose but the pot. As far as
re-firing temperature, I'd keep it under cone 04 if you don't
know anything about the body. If that doesn't heal the
crazing and you are still interested, maybe go to cone 1 or
2 max, watching through the peephole for signs of sagging.

Please report back here if you try this!

I have a kiln with a firing ramp starting 25/40/60deg per hour. I
should be able to crawl at low temperature for quite a while and then
creep up the range. This should stop the thing heating up too quickly
and, as you put it, gives me worse problems than just the original
crazing. The kiln cuts in to full power at 600degC. My kiln's a top
loader, so there's no way of checking through peephole for problems.
Time to play safe at the lower temperature, if I go ahead and try this.

I suppose on other way of going about this is to seal the inside of the
pot with one of the polyeurathene varnishes. Probably a safer approach,
but not as much fun. Any recommendations, please. From what you say
Bob, I will probably have to do this after firing anyway.

Of course, Bob, I'll let you know what happens if I do fire it.

Regards
Susie


--
Susie Thompson
If you can't stand the heat, don't tickle the dragon!
to email me, replace deadspam.com with susiethompson.co.uk

Going back a few decades, I bought a couple huge old platters at an
auction. They were badly crazed, cost near nothing. I fired them in
a very slow bisque fire. I always do hours and hours slowly firing,
and rarely if ever, lose anything. Anyway, the platters came out
beautiful and looked sparkling new. I was amazed, never expecting
such remarkable results. I wish you equally fine luck with your
piddle pot. ;- )

Catherine in Yuma AZ





On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:27:40 +0000, Susie wrote:

In message , Bob Masta
writes
On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:11:24 +0000, Susie wrote:

I have just bought an old chamber pot made by Royal Doulton for not a
lot of money. I'd love to use it as a planter, but the glaze has
crazed, but not too badly I'm thinking that it's cast earthenware, with
a plain white glaze and no decorations of any kind.. What would happen
if I popped it on stilts and took it slowly up to temperature? Anyone
any idea whereabouts that temperature might be?

I've often come across interesting pots with crazed glaze, but never
been tempted to try this before. Thanks for all your help.


If you attempt this, I strongly recommend that you go VERY
slow at the start. If it is earthenware, the pot almost surely has
moisture trapped inside it, which will not come out simply by sitting
around at room temperature. If you raise the temperature
too fast, you'll have a lot worse than crazing!

In fact, you might want to use your kitchen oven for this.
Start out with an hour or so on "low" (under 200F) and
work your way up to (say) 350F over a few hours. I used
this approach on a friend's earthenware mug that always
got hot in the microwave. I suspected trapped water, and
this approach indeed "cured" it... at least until the next
time he washed it!

Which brings us to the fact that despite your best efforts
at reglazing, you pretty much have to assume that water
will somehow find a way into the body, which may very well
cause new crazing down the road.

Nevertheless, this might be a fun project and if you take
it slow you don't have much to lose but the pot. As far as
re-firing temperature, I'd keep it under cone 04 if you don't
know anything about the body. If that doesn't heal the
crazing and you are still interested, maybe go to cone 1 or
2 max, watching through the peephole for signs of sagging.

Please report back here if you try this!

I have a kiln with a firing ramp starting 25/40/60deg per hour. I
should be able to crawl at low temperature for quite a while and then
creep up the range. This should stop the thing heating up too quickly
and, as you put it, gives me worse problems than just the original
crazing. The kiln cuts in to full power at 600degC. My kiln's a top
loader, so there's no way of checking through peephole for problems.
Time to play safe at the lower temperature, if I go ahead and try this.

I suppose on other way of going about this is to seal the inside of the
pot with one of the polyeurathene varnishes. Probably a safer approach,
but not as much fun. Any recommendations, please. From what you say
Bob, I will probably have to do this after firing anyway.

Of course, Bob, I'll let you know what happens if I do fire it.

Regards
Susie