32 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
power, I polish tny pieces on a wheel resting on a wooden 
support. This operation requires some patience. 
I have said elsewhere that the pieces of placing material 
were violently cracked and broken at each firing. This causes 
pieces of fire bricks, called grains, to get stuck to the fused 
glaze. These grains making flaws in the ware nmst be removed 
with a carborundum wheel. It is useless to speak of this work 
which is the same for porcelain as for faience. 
Sometimes cracks occur on glazed pieces. If the crack is 
not too deep, it is possible to fill it. For this filling, pulverized 
biscuit of hard porcelain is mixed with gum arable. This paste 
is worked with an ivory or wood spatula and forced into the 
crack. After it has dried it is filled again, then it is covered 
with gummed glaze and refired in the same conditions as before. 
With colored glazes, cracks disappear. 
Unglazed biscuit never being refired, the cracks must be 
filled in the same manner, but without refiring. The biscuit 
flour is then mixed not with gum, but with silicate of soda. 
Porcelain has the great advantage of standing 3 or 4 
firings withoxit much risk, and even of acquiring more bril- 
liancy at each refiring. It is then easy to repair pieces on 
which have appeared grains, thinness of glaze, cracks, blisters 
and even raising of paste, as is often the case for flamme reds 
of copper when their firing has not been done properly. I 
have seen Sevres pieces refired three times. Chaplet has 
shown me some fine flamme reds obtained at the sixth firing, 
and I have in my collection ceramics which have stood four 
firings. 
As a rule gres does not stand a refiring well. All the trials 
I have made with this material have been disappointing. 
However, when the gres piece has been fired without glaze the 
first time, in biscuit, one may, with a chance of success, refire 
it with glaze, but in both cases the firing should be oxidising. 
It is on a second firing, the first of which is made in biscuit, that 
crystalline glazes on gres are obtained. Gres will not stand a 
second reducing fire. On the contrarj^ porcelain behaves well 
in many refirings with both atmospheres. Rtit one iioint 
must be borne in mind. In order that the refired piece may 
change its appearance, it nmst reach a higher temperature than 
it had in the first firing; its modification by a new pyro- 
chemical combination is possible only on that condition. If 
it has been fired at the bottom of the kiln it must be refired on 
top (the hottest part), or if it has been fired on top, it must be 
refired with a new coat of glaze. In this case it is the new 
glaze which changes the appearance of the vase. 
Pieces decorated with mat or bright glazes can be modified, 
but those which have been decorated with pS.tes sur pates will 
keep forever the effect acciuired in the first firing. So the body 
colored yellow by uranium, which has turned black on first 
firing througli lack of oxygen, will never again become yellow; 
its coiiibmatiou in l^lack is permanent; but, the cupric glaze 
which has turned green through lack of reduction, will become 
red on its second passage through a reducing fire. 
It is evident that when a piece is refired, one nmst give it 
supports and colimms w^hich have been fired, as there will be 
no more shrinkage. 
After the firing chamber is emptied, the baking chamber is 
opened. There pieces have been placed in saggers without lute 
and without supports or bats. The temperature is compara- 
tively low, but this baking is sufficient to give to pieces the 
solidity which makes their handling easy, while it increases the 
porosity necessarj^ for a good glazing. All the placing material 
must pass through the baking chaml^er before being fired. It is 
easy to imderstand that a raw sagger could not stand any load, 
and that being somewhat larger than the fired one, it could not 
be placed on top of it. 
BLUE PRINTS OF GRASSES AND FLOWERS 
[By Mart Evans Fhanois in " Good Housekeeping " ] 
THESE prints are easily made wherever sunlight and water 
are abundant. Both paper and printing frames may be 
prepared at home, as the blue paper is well known to every- 
one who uses a camera. Prints of grass must be at least a 
foot long and should be wide enough to show the plant without 
cramping leaf or stem. For paper there is nothing better than 
heavy white wrapping paper, purchased in large sheets, and 
cut into strips of suitable width. To insure clear prints it is 
better to use it freshly prepared, and, as the chemical solution 
is easily applied, it is slight trouble to finish up a few sheets at a 
time. The chemicals used are sixty grains citrate of iron and 
ammonia, forty grains red prussiate of potash. Each should 
be dissolved in one-half ounce of water, but the two solutions 
must be kept separate until a few moments before appljdng 
them to the paper. Then pour the two solutions together, 
and in a dindy lighted room lay the strips of paper on the 
floor and wash the mixture thinlj? and evenly over them with a 
camel's hair brush. The wet strips should be hung in a dark 
closet and left until thoroughly dry, when they may be cut into 
shorter pieces and laid away where they will be sheltered from 
light and moisture. 
The printing frame is of exceedingly simple construction. 
For a foundation, which must, of course, be slightly larger than 
the size of the print desired, a thin wooden board, such as maybe 
bought at any picture framer's, is used. This should be covered 
smoothly with a pad of three layers of flannel, to insure an even 
pressure on all parts of the plant. When the grass is gathered 
and ready for printing, the prepared paper is laid, face up, on 
this frame and the grass placed carefully upon it, letting stem 
and leaf and head lie naturally and gracefully so that there 
will be no appearance of stiffness in the finished print. Directly 
upon the grass place a sheet of ordinary window glass, the 
size of the frame, and clamp it tiglitly to the foundation board, 
using spring acting clothespins. It will be found advantageous 
for the collector to prepare several frames, so that a number of 
prints may be made at the same time. 
Preparations for printing must not be made in a strong 
light, but as soon as the glass is on the frame the whole should 
be placed in the direct sunlight. The time of printing varies, 
though ten to twenty minutes is usually sufficient to produce a 
clear white print upon a background of dull blue. Longer 
printing shades the white impression made by the grass, and 
faintly outlines the delicate veining. After exposure the print 
is washed for twentj^ minutes, either in running water or in 
several changes of water. During this process it must be kept 
face down, but on being taken out it is placed face up again 
in the sunliglit to drj/. 
DESIGN FOR BELT BUCKLE 
