Susie wrote:
In message , DKat
writes
Ahhh, becomes clearer. The experience I have in this regard is with very
large platters with a small foot and there is an issue of the droop you
mention. If you are not glazing and you are not going so high that
you risk
the clay itself melting, I would make clay support pillars of various
heights to use both for the bisque and the highfire or just fire
once. You
could also use kiln supports. Using fabric is going to leave you with
the
same problem of the wings flattening out I would think. Even for the
bisque
my platters need support. Are you working with paper clay or are the
wings
so terribly thin that they cannot risk 'handling' until highfired?
Again,
just my 2 cents. The platters I make are around 27" and are heavy. Clay
wads are placed around the edges.



I suppose that I really should be replying with my 2 pence worth ;-)))

It's a sculpture of two squabbling dragons hatched and hatching out of
eggs. I cannot go anywhere near this thing until it is high fired; as
you guess the wings and much of the detail is very fine indeed. I do
sometimes work with porcelain paper clay, but this one is made in plain
porcelain as I find that it's difficult to get fine detail and 'clean
edges' with paper clay.

It's been too complicated a thing to be able to build supports in as I
made it, mostly because I don't think that I would be able to get them
out after firing without risking disaster. This is why I want find out
just how high I can fire the porcelain without risking slumping, then
packing them carefully with ceramic fibre and re-firing to top
temperature at around 1250.

IF and it's a bit of a big IF, my dragons survive this, I'll take some
pics and try to get around to posting where you can see just what this
is all about. On second thoughts, I'm going to take pics before I fire
them, just in case. There seems to be some sort of justice, dragons
emerging from 1250C with their wings flying!! Or not :-((((

Here's hoping
Regards

Susie

Just to put my five eggs in...
How about supporting the dragone UPSIDE down for the firing so that if
they slump they'll slump upwards (if you see what i mean???) could be a
new way of getting that inaudible lightness of being that comes from
dragons....
Hugs
Eddie