Fun with SiC

Artificial reduction in an electric kiln using silicon carbide. I got some 1500 grit Silicon Carbide from eBay to see if artificial reduction would work with SCM. These were fired to Cone 8 electric.

Here are the pots with Strontium Crystal Magic plus 1% Silicon Carbide as the base with Hanna's Fake Ash and Water Color Green + 1% Cobalt Oxide over.

These worked out really well. They look very similar to the pots fired in reduction. I'll probably do a comparison post with Oxidation, Reduction, and Artificial Reduction pots side by side at some point. The pot on the right is made of a really dark stoneware, which I assume caused the Water Color Green to change to the brownish green (kind of icky) color.

On the other hand, here are some pots with Malcolm Davis Shino (with Redart) plus 1% Silicon Carbide. The little pot had Coleman Tea Dust + 1% Silicon Carbide inside. Both of these glazes were bad ideas. The Shino is a huge mass of blisters that crumble into glass powder very easily. The Tea Dust was a pretty good crater glaze, but definitely not functional.

Before firing...





Here's the SCM+SiC before firing:

Clay from left: Los Altos with a little Cedar, Cedar, Firethorn.

and here's the Shino pots before firing:

The three little pots have Coleman Tea Dust with 1% SiC inside. The two bigger cups have regular Coleman Tea Dust inside. Clay from Left: Birch, Los Altos with a little Cedar, Birch, Babu, Cedar.