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POTTERS
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of BRITISH

COLUMBIA
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Saggar Firing, or, Use What You’ve Got

I'm primarily a Cone 10, reduction-firing,
functional ware potter. But last October, I
decided to branch out and try a completely
new technique. Over the years, Ive never
been one to deny myself anything clay related.
Raku, Naked Raku, pit firing, New Zealand
sawdust firing, crystalline firing, low salt and
Majolica were all techniques I'd enjoyed, but
what I really wanted was something I could
do on my own, using the clay, materials and
the gas kiln I already had. I wanted a firing
that had an element of unpredictability and
fun. After seeing the saggar-fired work of Ruth
Allan and Jill Waterfall, I became, ‘all fired up’
and decided to give smoke-firing a try.

Saggars or ‘safeguards’ have historically
been used in Asia and the United Kingdom
to protect fine ware from the effects of flame
and smoke and from debris and ash created
during a fossil fuel or wood firing. Today, for
the studio potter, a saggar is used to create a
localized reducing atmosphere around pieces
stacked within it, in other words, keeping the
ash and debris inside—against the pots, not
out.

A saggar can be a large-lidded box made
of fireclay or any sandy, open clay which will
completely surround the piece. Or, a saggar
can be built inside a kiln using any refractory
materials, such as hard or soft bricks and kiln
shelves. I chose this last method as the quickest
and easiest. It also meant that I could change
the size of the saggar to take the number of
pieces I had to fire.

For the first firing, I threw the pieces using
my usual clay: B-Mix 10 mixed with plenty of
grog. I chose to make lidded jars with extruded
or hand built knobs. When the pieces were
dry, I brushed them with at least four coats
of terra sigillata. I then burnished them with
a scrunched up thin plastic bag (the ones you
get at the supermarket for packing produce in)
and bisque fired to Cone 06.

Next came the building of the saggar. I had
quite a few old soft bricks hanging around, the
leftovers of a kiln long ago torn apart. First, to
protect my kiln’s bottom shelves, old. shelves
were placed over them. Then the bricks were
stacked to form the back and sides of the
sagear ‘box’. Once there were retaining walls, I
could start to pack the space with combustible
materials and the pots themselves. The saggar
was not airtight; my main concern was that
combustible materials did not leak out. On

By Kay Austen

the floor of the saggar went shards,
to keep ware from possible thermal
shock and then came a layer of
sawdust or salt. I decided to pack
each individual pot in its own foil
wrap, so that materials were held up
against the surface of each piece as
this was probably a more predictable
and controllable way to encourage
surface decoration.

For some time, I had been collecting
interesting combustible materials:
salt-soaked driftwood from the shore
of Howe Sound, pine and spruce
cones, pine needles, bits of string,
grasses, dried seed heads, shredded
newspaper and dry leaves. There
was also vermiculite, sand, coarse salt,
copper and brass wire, shells, B.B.Q.
charcoal, old used. stainless steel and copper
scourers, wire wool, wire mesh, kitty litter
and an assortment of oxides and carbonates,
including copper carbonate and_ sulphate,
cobalt carbonate and sulphate, manganese
carbonate, iron oxide, crocus martis, rutile,
burnt umber and granular ilmenite, each
mixed with water.

Now the fun part! Grabbing a pot, I wrapped.
it several times with copper wire, and then I
dipped grasses into the copper mix and pressed.
them onto the surface. Next, I soaked a bit of
lichen in cobalt and placed it onto the shoulder

of the pot. Lastly, a stainless steel scourer was

arranged around the knob. Everything was

"ait

Large bowl on display at the Foyer Gallery, Squamish.

tightly wrapped with foil, and then placed into
the saggar. It could be stacked on its side, on
its base or upside down. Then I surrounded
that pot with combustible materials, as closely
as I could; pinecones, newspaper, anything to
encourage fuming and reduction. A few were
left without wrapping to see what just fuming
would do. In between pots, as I packed, salt
‘bombs’ were placed—small bowls filled with
coarse salt, designed to specifically fume in
that area. Working at wrapping each of 15
pieces, the largest 24 cm tall by 16 cm wide,
with materials which would leave a mark,

Continued on Page 5,
Combustibles and bombs

Three walls of the saggar are completed. Wrapped ware and combustible materials are

tumble stacked.

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - August 2011