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Thank you for responding, Laura! I'm only recently discovering the thrill that harder materials like glass and ceramic can provide. It's definitely unlike anything else. As long as you are here to field questions, I'd love to know a
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Thank you for responding, Laura! I'm only recently discovering the thrill that harder materials like glass and ceramic can provide. It's definitely unlike anything else. As long as you are here to field questions, I'd love to know a little more about the process of making ceramic toys is like. I took a ceramics class once in high school, but I get the feeling this might be a bit different
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I too know about the high school ceramic class and your right how we create our toys is way different. Each ceramic toy takes 7 to 10 days to complete. Once the final shape is achieved, the clay pieces are air dried outside for 3 to 5 days, depending on the season. Texas has quite warm summer and fall months, and the 3 day drying time is sufficient. Not so in winter and spring season when the drying process takes about 5 days. Greenware (name for dry clay pieces) is then loaded into the kiln for the bisque firing (first kiln firing). In this 24 hour step, pieces are taken to a temperature of about 1900 F. At this point all water and organic matter is burned off and pieces become hard. Hand glazing is the next step. Each toy gets 4 coats of glaze to achieve the maximum depth of color and glass like smoothness. In the second firing, this is about 15 hours long and hotter, the glaze and a piece will become permanently fused together. When the pieces come out, they are finally done! The process we use to make our toys is what sets DCD apart from others. I am very hands on with each toy, from handglazing myself,testing and design if the piece is not perfect it's not sent out. Thanks for the great question!
