[Sca-cooks] Crackpots was Master Hroars Email was Re: Cast iron pots

[Mercy Neumark]

>>I just made a
>>couple of cooking pots, one a bean pot (it started
>>out bigger but shrank
>>in firing) another a skillet.  Now I have to wait
>>until Baron Wars (in
>>May in sunny Ohio) to see whether they will actually
>>work on a fire or
>>go CRACK the first time they meet flame.

>Ummmm, you DID fire them, didn't you? Coil or wheel?
>Sealed all the cracks, without trapping air inside? If
>so, there shouldn't be a problem....

[Sorry I didn't see the original posts...I haven't been keeping up with this
list lately due to work.]

Warning!  Pottery geek-speak about to happen!

Actually, there could be a problem depending on the clay body used.  Putting
a flame directly on a fired pot can cause it to crack.  If earthenware or a
fireclay is used for the main material (with a lot of grog mixed in, which
is crushed once fired clay material).  The reason is that earthenware (which
was used mostly throughout europe in period) has more pours, which allow the
fired clay to expand and contract.  Other clays are less pourous or
non-pourous, so if you put heat on these and there is no pours it has to
give, so it expands and cracks.

Think of a glass drinking vessel.  If it isn't tempered and you pour hot
water, then cold, the thing will crack.  Same thing here with stonewares or
porcelaines.

There are other issues that Philip mentioned about coiling and making sure
there aren't any air pockets in the clay (which create little exploding
gernades in the kiln), etc.  But the main issue is if the potter made sure
the material was the type of clay that was pourous and could handle direct
flame or sudden heat from placing into a coal-pit.

Hopefully that made sense.

--Artemesia Serena, apprentice to Master Hroar Stormgengr (and momma Huette!
  Hi Momma!)

P.S. I plan on writting more articles for the florgy-thingie so maybe I
should talk about this stuff in an article?  Hmmm.  Not sure if it is boring
or not.

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