dainiusiva
New member
Thanks for your answer Kcress,
I guess that i will find access to kiln in my town somewhere, what type of clay would you recommend, or this doesnt make any difference? Are there any secrets/tips on making ceramic rock?
Join me for a strange one...
- Thread starter kcress
- Start date
Thanks for your answer Kcress,
I guess that i will find access to kiln in my town somewhere, what type of clay would you recommend, or this doesnt make any difference? Are there any secrets/tips on making ceramic rock?
kcress
New member
This is about a year old picture of a 14 year old setup. This is an "old school" setup. That's all crushed coral with undergravel filters!
I run the left tank as a sort of turf scrubber and the middle tank greens out then gets stripped bare by me.
The right most tank is where my two fish mostly hang out. They keep that tank hairless. My tang is more than an inch wide and is 14 years old. He is extremely buff and is seriously ripped. He literally glows in bright light. His mate is a large angel fish that is so old that his blue colors have faded to gray. They both tease each other continually. Tang backs into "Big Blue" and BB lays on top of Tang whenever he can pull it off.
I have not changed water in about 3 years. I make up with RO and weed occasionally which exports a lot of nitrates.
As I just mentioned - that right tank just failed. So the middle has become the new Right Tank.
The 14 year old VFD failed so the random waves ended about a year ago. The power bill went insane with PG&E's bumbling screw up a few years ago so the (6) 175W MH pendants had to go.
BTW: It's really really hard to photo a 12 foot long setup and do it any justice at all.
Note also the room painting and remodel stalled around that setup since it was only going to take a few months to get the new system up. :lmao:
Tang doing his thing in a clean jump (far left one).
dzfish17; The ceramic plates are believed to be dry. To make sure, Friday, we will put them in the kiln and run an electric heater out of an electric smoker nabbed from the dump. We'll use a temp controller I had laying around to run the heater and hold the kiln at 180F. We can't do that with the gas burners as they're too big. Well do that for a day or two to assure us the plates are completely dry.
So hopefully next week I'll have the first 9 fired and can do the last 4. Then I'll have to figure out the stand pipe shields.
dainiusiva said:
You bet dainiusiva!
Tips... Well I'm not an expert just the first local to try this so I don't know everything... :lol:
I would definitely suggest you not get things as wet as I did. It's caused this really long drying time and since we even tried to hurry it a bit I've had some corners curl up a little. The remaining plates I do will not have the wet texture added. I will just do something else..
Don't forget that the clay will shrink as it dries so make everything 5% larger than you need. Also because it shrinks do everything you do on top of craft paper so what the clay sits on can shrink as the clay does - otherwise it will crack as it dries.
The recommended clay would be "Sculpture Raku". It's light gray instead of some red or mud brown color. It also is very forgiving and not very expensive. However you can use about anything. Use a low fire clay.
Of course whatever kiln you locate will control the actual size of your plates, so make sure you find that out. "Ask how big can my plates be?" Because how the kiln is loaded and how the shelves are supported also affects the size.
What size back ground are you wanting to do?
dainiusiva
New member
Kcress,
my setup will be small, so i am planning to do just ceramic rock, no background
kcress
New member
The nine plates fit into the kiln with less than an inch of clearance!!
I have the temp controller up and running. Last I looked the kiln was holding steady at 186F.
This will provide about 2-1/2 days of intense drying.
Monday we fire it off. This weekend I'll probably start the last 4 plates and contemplate how to hide the standpipes.
I have the temp controller up and running. Last I looked the kiln was holding steady at 186F.
This will provide about 2-1/2 days of intense drying.
Monday we fire it off. This weekend I'll probably start the last 4 plates and contemplate how to hide the standpipes.
tahiriqbal
Sialkot
Glad to see klin been occupied and love to see how it all turns out to be. I have seen this lovely large build thread here in the UK http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=314319&highlight=MO's+reef&page=205 . Worth a look ,,,,
tahiriqbal
Sialkot
Try Steve in Rostock Germany on Korallenwelt@web.de . He should be able to answer better than me.
Dustin1300
Reefaholic
If you end up finding how they got the coral texture on that please let us know kcress. While the rock will all be covered at some point I do love the texturing on the rock. Either way, good job on the ceramic and is really inspiring
kcress
New member
I doubt that the company making money on that particular texture is going to take time to explain to me how they do it... If you ask them how they make Coke a Cola I doubt they'll tell you.
kcress
New member
The fire was successful!!
There was one completely unexpected result. To make the texture I used chopped up corn. I used a drill stirrer to make up the thick goo. Next day the fungus had come to visit.
When the kiln was opened the texture was mostly shattered. It was originally about an inch and a half thick. I wasn't totally pleased with it because it essentially covered up the bottom inch and a half of all my nice sculptures. But since it all shattered there's only about 1/2 an inch now. Which I actually prefer! The holey texture is great and still there.
My theory is that the same sugars that enabled the fungus also violated the structure of the clay preventing it from crystallizing into ceramic. It would turn into carbon that would essentially separate areas of clay. Think of it like brown sugar stirred into hot oatmeal... Those sweet sugar swirls...BAD for ceramics!
But it worked!
My latest plates, (see above), are using bird seeds rolled into the clay. Hence no sugars released, so I think there won't be a problem with them. Certainly no fungus showed up to par-TEE.
Here's the results.
Just about filled my full size truck bed.
This shot shows the actual color pretty well.
There was one completely unexpected result. To make the texture I used chopped up corn. I used a drill stirrer to make up the thick goo. Next day the fungus had come to visit.
When the kiln was opened the texture was mostly shattered. It was originally about an inch and a half thick. I wasn't totally pleased with it because it essentially covered up the bottom inch and a half of all my nice sculptures. But since it all shattered there's only about 1/2 an inch now. Which I actually prefer! The holey texture is great and still there.
My theory is that the same sugars that enabled the fungus also violated the structure of the clay preventing it from crystallizing into ceramic. It would turn into carbon that would essentially separate areas of clay. Think of it like brown sugar stirred into hot oatmeal... Those sweet sugar swirls...BAD for ceramics!
But it worked!
My latest plates, (see above), are using bird seeds rolled into the clay. Hence no sugars released, so I think there won't be a problem with them. Certainly no fungus showed up to par-TEE.
Here's the results.
Just about filled my full size truck bed.
This shot shows the actual color pretty well.
dainiusiva
New member
that looks great kcress,i'm sorry that i cannot give you advice on gluing the plates to acrylic...
Dustin1300
Reefaholic
Looking great kcress....I've tried to find a thread I followed a while back that went over some different ways of affixing plates/rocks over the back wall. I was thinking it involved affixing the plates/rocks to egg crate and then gluing the egg crate to the back because the glue would not hold the ceramic/rock directly to the wall. I'm not sure that is completely accurate so wait for some confirmation and a link if I can find it
it looks like the back of some of the plates are curled up a bit. This will probably make mounting them a little bit harder. Is there some way you could pour something (some sort of epoxy) to "level" the backs and thus give you a flat surface that might be able to then be mounted to the acrylic?
I'm currently mounting a foam and rock wall but to a glass tank so I'm just using silicone to mount mine but I'm pretty sure that won't work long term for you.
PS..The plates look great!
Jeff
I'm currently mounting a foam and rock wall but to a glass tank so I'm just using silicone to mount mine but I'm pretty sure that won't work long term for you.
PS..The plates look great!
Jeff
noahm
Active member
If you are not too concerned about the back panel, I would consider the superglue/epoxy/superglue sandwich used to apply frags. If I were to do it with the panels, I would make (4) 1" diameter balls of plumbers epoxy. Use generous super glue gel on one side and smash gently one ball on each corner. Then use generous gel on the exposed side and smash the panel into the acrylic. Wedge it in place for a bit until the epoxy dries. The super glue will stick to the acrylic and ceramic like a mother and the epoxy will cure it all into a permanent state that is still probably small enough to pop free if you ever need to.
It is not going to be a sealed panel, but I don't know if you were necessarily trying for that.
Also, as an alternative, I have heard that 3m 5200 is safe once cured, and will stick to the acrylic. That would be a good way to go if it is. Maybe someone can confirm. The zinc oxide would be my main concern. 1%
MSDS
The panels look pretty sweet btw!
It is not going to be a sealed panel, but I don't know if you were necessarily trying for that.
Also, as an alternative, I have heard that 3m 5200 is safe once cured, and will stick to the acrylic. That would be a good way to go if it is. Maybe someone can confirm. The zinc oxide would be my main concern. 1%
MSDS
The panels look pretty sweet btw!
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kcress
New member
Looking great kcress....I've tried to find a thread I followed a while back that went over some different ways of affixing plates/rocks over the back wall. I was thinking it involved affixing the plates/rocks to egg crate and then gluing the egg crate to the back because the glue would not hold the ceramic/rock directly to the wall. I'm not sure that is completely accurate so wait for some confirmation and a link if I can find it
Thanks?
Hi Jeff. Yes the curl was due to hurried drying. At first it concerned me but I don't think it will really matter now. A 36" deep acrylic bows a lot when filled. Like a full inch in the middle of the pane. So being flat doesn't seem to me like a big issue because the surface under the plate is in - no way - flat.
Being in three vertical stacked plates is probably a good thing since no one plate has to span that huge bow. This bow also means you can't rigidly mount the entire panel to the back because as the tank fills the back actually changes size which would put immense stresses into the plates and the acrylic surface.
I suspect I need to mount the plates only at the tops to allow this expansion/contraction to occur stress free.
I'm not, in any way, concerned about the back panels of this tank. The epoxy thing sounds like a possibility. Due the aforementioned panel movement it would probably be better to use all the blobs only at the tops.
The 5200! Great idea! Made to soak in SW all its life, I think. How bad is zinc? I doubt the zinc would be much of an issue since only the exposed surfaces could even participate in the water chemistry. That would probably only be a couple of square inches for all the panels combined.
So, no chance for silicon huh? I like the flexibility it would offer in this application.
Thanks!
