Post #744994 by danlovestikis on Tue, Jun 16, 2015 11:11 AM

LoriLovesTiki thank you. Tikis are a luxury when brought into a home. I never want to price my work so that only a few can afford it.

hang10tiki I'm posting as much as a whole month each time. I'm playing catch-up without fries. OK that's corny.

Matt Reese thank you. We try hard to come up with projects that people will keep in their collections and enjoy after we are long gone.

=========================================

Update Sacramento Crawl Mug (Cap City Crawl October 2, 3, 4, 2015)

OK right off I will say that my glaze experiment was a total failure. Even the IN glaze failed on this mug. Here's the story in photos.

I opened the kiln after it cooled for 30 hours. I always want the temperature inside the kiln to be equal to or lower than the outside. That prevents cracking.

First I saw that none of the CN glaze survived being on top of an IN glaze. So never again, EXPERIMENT OVER!

I also noticed that 2 layers of IN just ran off. It was too thin on the outer portions of the mug it also

didn't stay put in the troughs. It just ran off to the bottom of the mug. I am so glad I didn't do the required 3 layers.

If I hadn't had the mug on spikes while firing it would have put glaze all over the kiln shelf. (the shelf has a kiln wash layer to prevent sticking but that would have pulled off with the mug and then I'd have to repaint the kiln wash onto the shelf again)

I will find a way to make this mug completely dishwasher safe with glaze only but I wanted to show how it will eventually turn out so I painted this one mug with enamel paint. This is not the color that the run will be glazed with, this is a failure.

It will take a lot of work to perfect these mugs but I'm willing to do it. If you want to sign up for this huge fogcutter mug just let me know by posting here or by PM or on facebook and I'll add you to the list. Doing this crawl mug is something special and dear to my heart so I keep the price low. $80 each plus shipping if needed.

I will make 70 for the crawl and 30 more specials for a grand total of 100 and then the mold will be broken. Dan takes most of the specials as payment for the work he does to help me. There is also one half of one messed up mug that I rescued that Dan will keep. It's missing the top half with the sign.

Next will be the search for the perfect glazes that will make this mug a keeper. Cheers, Wendy