Process: I’d never made many slabs before embarking on the rain screen _ architectural skin proposal Sarah and I’d submitted to ekwc. Seems a simple enough task. We’ve honed it and are taking one page of detailed notes to track the variations in process, so we can learn how best to achieve our goal of 36 panels for our installation I’ve begun to call – “ties that bind us.”

The full-scale mockett has been instrumental in detailing the end goal. We’ve changed the panel proportions, based on available kiln shelves. Realizing the process would require up to 18 shelves at a time, to optimize our schedule. We can make 5- 8 panels a day, depending on our endurance and the complexity of what we do after the initial rolling out process. These dry within a day but so far we’ve only been able to fire one time per week, due to the other participants kiln requirements. We’ve decided to stick with Kiln # 1 – that holds 9 panels. We could switch to Kiln # 4 – and fire all the panels at one go – but this seems a larger risk – and perhaps less predictable. We chose to fire in Kiln # 1 – nine shelves of 45cm x 60 cm x 4cm thick.
We apply alumina oxide mixed with 3% bentonite each firing to insure that the panels can be moved during the making and do not fuse after firing.