Hi all
I havn't been posting any bows lately, sorry. two reasons: First, I got another wave of heavy flint knapping fever. For about a month, I just could not put down the bloody rocks long enough to even repair my pressure flaker. Only other thing besides knapping I did was to hunt for more flint. My skills have advanced a step, but still...
But addictive. I've seen people play flappy bird, must be very similar.
Then, I got the pottery thing. I built me a new kiln, since the one I had was too small to burn my udu drums without getting them dangerously close to the fire and the wet ground. The kiln was built from mud and grass, reinforced with chicken wire. For the chimney, I used about 12 feet of tin pipe from a downspout. It worked out quite well. The lid cracked when taking it off, I guess I'll have to make it in two or three separate parts to reduce the strain when lifting it.
The udus and ocarinas are from natural clay or bought white pottery clay. The natural clay is used as it came from the ground in the spiked udu and the tan ocarinas, and tempered with horse manure for the rest of the stuff. The manure makes for a very workable clay, no cracking and very light pieces in the end, but it slightly muffles the sound of udus. I might try coating the inside with slip or avoid organic temper for my future udus. I will also try to improve my surfaces, probably have to wedge my clay better, cause may of the uneven spots show up during the drying.
Apart from that, I'm quite satisfied with this first firing. Took seven hours and about 70 pounds of wood to get everything glowing in a tangerine orange
