Pottery Black
Getting shiny black pottery?
I have a piece of pottery and I want a fire pit and I want to black out as Native American pottery. How do I go about doing so. Thank you
-Browning-You got some good answers already, but I wanted to add that I I remember reading that one important step in producing the good, shiny pots that some American Indians was preferred browning the pot dried before firing, to compress the clay particles to the surface. They would use hard, smooth, stream-wear stones or pieces of smooth, hard wood or bone polishing their pots, but you can use the back (convex side) of a spoon. Burnishing (rubbing vigorously with a surface smooth, hard tool), was also used for polishing soft metals like gold, silver or bronze in other ancient cultures. The pots were blackened by smoke fired at a relatively low temperature, so that the smoothness would not be spoiled - but it means that the pots would not work as well for holding water. OK ... Here are some web pages describing the process ... http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa024.shtml http://vickihardin.com/articles/pit-fire-ceramics.html