Ceramic kilt pins/buckles anyone?

[Chas]

The ceramic in knife blades is a totally different animal than traditional ceramics used in broaches and pins and cups and plates. It is a special mixture of clays and binders and is fired a very high temperatures in specialty kilns and then quench and treated and fired again. Even if you could set up to do all of that (expensive equipment) I'm not sure you could come up with items that were decorative along the lines of buckles and pins.

Thanks for that bigdad. They were all the rage, here in the UK some time ago, but then disappeared off the shelves just as quickly. I thought that they couldn't be the same as an everyday teacup.

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

Na, the tea pots and that kind of ceramics are mostly alumina and silica that are fused together, and most of those are at 1700 degrees F, low fire or cone 06. A lot of the art type ceramic pieces are high fire cone 9 or 10, somewhere around 2500 F. Either are hard, but fairly brittle. I don't really know what they use in the ceramic knives, but I am sure it is not regular tea pot clay.

I have fused pieces of nickle and copper into high fire ceramic slabs while they were being glaze fired, but that is not easy to control; the metal just ends up in blobs in the ceramic.

All that being said, this thread has got me thinking about the ceramic cantles again. Perhaps metal overlays or something like that could be used on a ceramic cantle...

[Chas]

Na, the tea pots and that kind of ceramics are mostly alumina and silica that are fused together, and most of those are at 1700 degrees F, low fire or cone 06. A lot of the art type ceramic pieces are high fire cone 9 or 10, somewhere around 2500 F. Either are hard, but fairly brittle. I don't really know what they use in the ceramic knives, but I am sure it is not regular tea pot clay.

I have fused pieces of nickle and copper into high fire ceramic slabs while they were being glaze fired, but that is not easy to control; the metal just ends up in blobs in the ceramic.

All that being said, this thread has got me thinking about the ceramic cantles again. Perhaps metal overlays or something like that could be used on a ceramic cantle...

Ted - I think you should follow this up. I seem to remember this coming up in a thread not so long ago (might even have been a thread of yours). I can remember mentioning the possibility of a wooden cantle, but that was soundly beaten down by the general public. All we heard was metal, metal, metal. But, I keep seeing great sporrans with leather cantles - McMurdo has one. If it can be done with leather, then I am sure that it can be done with other materials.

You obviously have the knowledge; if you have the facilities as well - go for it. I think that traditional kilting could do with some innovation and ceramic cantles could be the start.

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

Ya, that was probably one of my threads. It wasn't just metal, it was silver, silver, silver. I have been looking into making a cantle of clay, unfired, and having a molde made from that to then have it cast in metal. Might as well just get silver wire or sheet silver and put inlays and overlays on the fired ceramic cantle. It would look a little like stain glass or something.

Almost all of my work now is in unfired greenware that gets handed off to other artists while it's still leather hard, but I can have my pieces fired without too much trouble.

I'll have to look into that.