Hi

I recently took an Art class at the local university and found out
about sculpture in clay. I love it! I'm currently doing gargoyles
and animals. My rhinocerous blew up in the kiln. Could somebody
suggest ways to make sculptures that won't explode?

Don: Clay hangs tough when it comes to moisture. So, to be sure most
moisture is gone: 1) Donot make the wall thickness any more than 12 mm,
preferably less; 2) wrap the piece in plastic film with a few holes in it
and let the piece dry slowly over a week or more (depends on air dryness
and room temperature); and 3) let the almost dry piece sit for a day or
so in the open before placing in the kiln; and 4) always "steam" the kiln
for 2-3 hours at the very beginning with the temperature below 100 C or
thereabouts. If you do all these things the pot will fire without
breakage in most cases. Cheers TomB Hamilton Canada

Make sure they are completely dry. Vent the kiln overnight to insure
complete drying.
Fire them more slowly,at a rate of an increase of 300degrees F per hour,
no more. The thicker
the sculpture the slower the firing. Bricks can be made solid and they
are fired safely but slowly.

Sharon

What about air pockets? Can't that make pots explode?
I had a sculpture lying around for 4 years before having it fired and
it still blew up. That couldn't have been moisture after all that
time.

Michelle

If you don't have control over the firing schedule of the kiln, you can
do what a friend of mine does.

After he's finished with the sculpture, he hollows it out. This usually
involves taking it off of the armature and getting rid of the extra clay
in the center. If that isn't possible, he will slice the work up like a
loaf of bread make the walls thinner then reassemble with slip. He
tries to make the walls about 3/4".

NEXT, he fills the sculpture with holes by pushing a rod, about the
diameter of a 2 penny nail, all the way through to the center of the
piece. The object here is to vent any remaining voids in your piece
into the open center of the sculpture. Then he fills the holes back up
with a pinch of clay. He does this by rolling a bit of clay between his
thumb and forefinger to a point and stuffing that into the hole. He
likes the rough texture this gives the work, but you can smooth out all
of the blemishes.

Then he lets it dry slowly and completely. This will usually take some
weeks. There are shelves in the kiln room and it is well vented so he
usually sets the work in there while waiting for it to become bone dry.

Let me emphasis the importance of the holes. He punches lots and lots
of holes into the these things. There is less than 1/2" between any
hole in any direction. Lots and lots and LOTS of holes.

He's never lost a piece since he started doing this. You're right when
you think this takes a lot of time. It generally doubles the amount of
time to complete a work. He doesn't lament the this as he'd had a
couple things blow to smithereens and a couple others that are held
together with epoxy.

I've heard that paper clay has fewer problems and is generally a better
sculpting medium.

--Steve.