Monday, July 18, 2016

The Fire This Time

For now, this is the torch setup in the studio. I planned something more elaborate, but the lack of a torch was really getting in the way. So I used a portable bench that I had, found the pickle pot, pumice pan, and torch, and got a temporary hot work station set up.

It'll do for now.

Pickle pot on the left, quench bucket underneath, pumice pan in the middle, igniter and torch on the right. The pickle pot is a crock pot from Goodwill. The pumice pan was a cookie tin and sits on a lazy susan that I picked up somewhere. (No, honest, I didn't make off with one from the kitchen.) Quench bucket used to have kitty litter in it. The torch is my trusty Smith Handy Heet air-acetylene rig. I love it.

Ventilation is not what it will be, but that has to wait for a place to install a hood. So for now I can anneal and solder indoors. Anything that produces lots of smoke or vapors will have to get done outside. That would be filling and emptying vessels with pitch and doing hot patinas.

But at this point I can actually get back to raising vessels.