OK...

A few folks asked for details on the raku firing basket I use for small things.

I started doing this because I make chopstick rests that I use as test tiles. They are small, and I wanted to do many at one time. The basket is made of hardware cloth, which is not cloth at all, but a small guage woven wire mesh screen available at any hardware store, in a variety of sizes.

You just make a basket, place your ware in it and fire away. When its time to move the ware to the reduction barrel, ya just lift the entire basket out and set it in the reduction barrel. I've not had a problem with ware sticking to the mesh. You just want to be sure your basket fits inside both your kiln and your reduction container.

The hardware cloth will eventually degrade with repeated firings, but I have used the same basket for at least 10 firings and it held up well. Hardware cloth is not expensive.

I make my basket in a triangular shape because I can get taller shapes in it and because that was just the least complicated shape to make. You can make any size or shape basket, and can add handles if you want...the hardware cloth doesn't care. Here's a drawing of the basket I made, because I seem to have misplaced my actual one in our frenzy to pack for our move:

by MudPuppy on Monday 26 September 2005 - 09:52:04. Comments: 0