[chicken]Bone China

Material research and exploration project

[chickenbonechina]

[chickenbonechina]

dried and cleaned vs fired calincined bones

[chickenbonechina]

the terracotta plates that i was using have broken, after only 2 uses.

Thankfully this is my finally batch of bones that needed to be fired.

[chickenbonechina]

[chickenbonechina]

before and after

[chickenbonechina]

Once making the slip of my second batch and it had come out of it’s bisque fire i notices how rough the surface was compared to the first lot i had done. I dont think the mixture or components of the materials had anything to do with the surface being much rougher. It was the mould i used and the fact that i ran some extra slip around the surface before it dried, trying to ‘smooth’ it off. Apparently the material wont stick to each other like i expected and than bits flake off, causing the uneven surface.

I spent some time sanding the surface down, using very fine sand paper. on the example shown above i only did half so i had the old surface to compare to as im interested to see how much of a difference it will make.

[chickenbonechina]

After breaking my last saga i decided i dont have the time to make another one, and feel it would be a waste of materials. This project is not about me and my skills to make a crucible for my bones, it is about the bone ash and it’s process. Once i accepted this realisation i decided to buy 2 outdoor terracotta pot trays to use as a saga. 

As they had only been fired once i needed to fire them again at a higher temp to ensure they would be able to with stand the higher temps i need to fire the bones at.

Once they had been fired a second time they changed colour! the terracotta came out a darker brown.

[chickenbonechina]

From the Flying Pig and into the workshop

[chickenbonechina]

[chickenbonechina]

Material journey of the chicken bone into china clay

[chickenbonechina]

Left my mould for a few weeks and came back to a mouldy mould! Apparently its no big deal. My mixed china clay, which i had stored in a bag, also smelt a bit

[chickenbonechina]

Made a slip with my more finer bone ash, and poured it into the mould. I tried 2/3 times with no success as the slip mould kept on getting stuck in the mould or would break off when i’d split the two parts. I thought this was due to not having a second hole to let the air escape when pouring int he slip. I later found out that this was not the case and the hole is sufficient enough to let the air out.  I need to pour the slip in a stead flow and let it only take up ‘half the hole’, leaving enough space for the air to escape. I will give this method a go tomorrow, and hopefully have better success.

I did make a simple slip mould using the previous mould i had, just so i could fire the new finer mixture i had made. That has just come out of the kiln after its first fire, so will have to wait for the second firing to see how smooth the new mixture is. (holding thumbs)

[chickenbonechina]

I decided i wanted to make a solid shape using my porcelain slip so needed to make a new slip mould.

Using a ping png ball i made this mould. It didnt take much time to do it. Hadnt really made a cast out of plaster before and i was surprised how simple it was.

[chickenbonechina]

extruded ceramics

[chickenbonechina]

Ceramics 3D printer from Design Academy Eindhoven

[chickenbonechina]

Unfold’s 3D printer

[chickenbonechina]