[Rockhounds] Mica Progress Report

[Kitty & Bill Heacox]

Thanks for the report, Gary.  I have a regular pottery kiln as well 
as an annealing one, and have always thought I should try glass.  I 
remember as a teenager I had a neighbor, a very elderly lady who was 
an artist and crafter, and was fascinated with the jewelry she 
made---with shaking, arthritis-bent hands---out of glass she melted 
in her little kiln.  I've wondered about using a little bit of 
olivine-rich sand from Green Sand Beach with glass, but speculated 
that the bits of basalt and coral in that sand would probably not 
work well.  But I should try.

I appreciate that you are keeping good records.  I'm reminded of an 
experiment I made a few years ago just for fun:  I did a "primitive 
firing" of clay gathered here from sugar cane fields and road cuts 
(lots of good red clay here on the Big Island);  the clay was fired 
in a pit in the ground with hot coals underneath and dry leaves and 
grass on top, and then when the stuff on top was burning well, the 
pit was closed with a wet tarp---a bit like an imu for cooking kalua 
pig.  I had painted each clay piece with a different combination of 
dirt, fireplace ash, rust, etc, and since I was just doing it for 
fun, I didn't keep records of what the "glaze" ingredients 
were.  When we opened the pit and took the pieces out, several were 
broken, of course (that happens in primitive firing), but one had the 
most beautiful copper-colored, somewhat iridescent, translucent shiny 
surface I've ever seen.  And I had no idea how I'd made that 
glaze!  I've tried several times since to reproduce it, with no luck.

I'm sure that most people on this List are of at least a slightly 
scientific mind, so they wouldn't be as stupid as I was!  But I 
learned my lesson and now keep as accurate records as possible, even 
for fun experiments.

Aloha,Kitty

At 11:17 AM 10/2/2007, you wrote:
>I'm working with Larry Rush's sheets of muscovite mica now.  Progress:
>
>First test:
>
>Mica on glass
>Mica between glass
>
>First test was with the raw mica (I also put a piece in there without any
>glass to "cook" it).  The samples were heated to 1450F (standard glass fuse
>temperature) and held for 15 minutes.
<snip>