College has kept me very busy. I’m about halfway done with this semester. In ceramics we have been rakuing every week, weather permitting. I have been wanting to raku beads for so very long but trying to figure out a contraption to fire them in has stood in my way.
Finally I made a ceramic box, sans lid, and poked holes through each side. I liked that, but it was hard to pull out of the kiln, being rectangular shaped and all.
I decided to throw a stoneware canister and poked holes through the sides. It ended up being about 8″ tall after being bisque fired, and wide enough to fit three 20mm beads. Each holds about the same amount of beads (20 or so). I have decided I prefer the canister to raku the beads inside. I think the tall sides aid in the reduction process.
2 thoughts on “Raku Beads”
I remember watching one documentary on the process of Raku, one particular artist used a metal trashcan with newspaper…I'm sure that I'm not explaining it correctly but they did and it was amazing.
Yes, it is quite fascinating. Sometimes we use sawdust (non-treated of course), but most of the time we use newspaper. I will have to post some pics of this process.