Once your porcelain pieces are firm enough to remove from the mold without having to worry too much about leaving fingerprints or flattening one side when you set them down, you can go ahead and remove any large pieces that still need to be cut out. The crown of the head is a good example. This needs to be opened so the eyes can be set, and it’s not only time consuming to do it after soft firing, but the piece is more apt to break at that point. The ends of shoulder plates may need to be removed and openings made to attach the head to the shoulder plate, and the shoulder plate to the body. Cutting guide holes at this time is a good idea. Once these preliminary cuts have been made, set the pieces aside to dry.
I have discovered by experience that laying your pieces out on something absorbent to dry may lead to cracking during firing. The theory seems to be that the piece dries unevenly as the absorbent material sucks the moisture out of the portion which rests on it. All I can say is that I have had a lot less problems since I started setting my pieces directly on a countertop or my wood table to dry. If I’m in a hurry, I may even set them outside to speed up the process (my house is air conditioned, which seems to affect the drying time.)
Once the pieces have dried thoroughly, you can either dry clean them or soft fire and wet clean them. Use the method that’s easiest for you.
The first class I ever attended had us cleaning very dry greenware with a variety of abrasive tools that raised a fine, powdery dust that filled the air and covered all of us. At the time I didn’t know that this dust would be harmful to my lungs, but as word about my new hobby got around, the doctors with whom I worked at the hospital soon set me straight on that score. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to learn to make dolls, but I already suffered from chronic asthma and feared doing any more permanent damage to my lungs. My first classroom experience was not as satisfactory as I had hoped, however, and I searched out another teacher closer to where I was living, and I didn’t have to worry about the dust so much after that.
In this second class I learned to clean soft fired greenware. This was still messy, but in a different way. There was no more dust in the air, but we did drip all over ourselves and make a bit of a “muddy” mess as we tried to do remove seams and any imperfections, but the resulting mess easily washed out of our clothing. This method requires soaking the porcelain pieces in room temperature water for at least five minutes before starting to clean them. This soaking serves to soften it slightly so it’s not so brittle. Warm water can cause any hidden air pockets to swell and break the porcelain, or burst and form pinholes, so room temperature is strongly recommended.
When putting the pieces in the water, take care to hold the pieces on a slant with the closed end down (like the fingers or the toes), and let the water trickle in slowly so the air rises to the top and then out as the water displaces it. The pressure from water rushing into pieces and trapping air inside can cause breakage, so slow down if the water “glugs” as it goes in or as you later empty it out. Also, take care not to bump your pieces together in the water to prevent blemishing and possibly breaking them.
Once they have soaked for at least five minutes, a sharp feather tool can be used to gently scrape the seams down. If you try to just slice the excess porcelain off right down at the bottom of the seam, it tends to chip off pieces and the chips usually go deeper into the seam then the surrounding surface and you have a mess, so easy does it.
A finger tool can be very helpful to get at the seams between fingers and toes. The goal here is to do away with the webbed look between fingers and toes. The trick is to remove enough to look realistic without leaving extra cuts or grooves behind, or cutting so deeply that you have a hole all the way through the porcelain. Start at the end of the fingers and work downward along first one side then the other. It’s so tempting to twist your tool a bit at the base of the fingers to start up the other side, but don’t do it. Fingers snap off easily, and then the piece is ruined. It’s faster to take your time at this point then to have to pour a new piece.
After the heavier seams are removed, use your little pink and white scrubby to smooth out the residue, being careful to use circular motions to avoid making flat spots. Just do a little bit, then stop and inspect your work. Flat spots can develop in the blink of an eye and you may need to vary your cleaning motions more, so check your progress often. Keep your SFGW and cleaning tools wet by dipping them in the water frequently.
The cuts where the skull cap and ends of arms, legs, and the shoulder plate were removed can be smoothed with this same scrubby. The attachment holes in the shoulder plate can be finished and smoothed with a soft beveler. This enlarges these holes to the proper size and does away with sharp edges that might cut the attaching threads, or catch at the shoulder plate connector.
In my next article I’ll talk a bit about the alternative of using T.I.B.s brushes to clean your greenware before firing, finishing the eyes, and doing the final all-over smoothing before the bisque firing.
