Post #528072 by Babalu on Tue, May 4, 2010 10:29 PM

Hey, thanks you guys!

Well, it's been a while since I last checked in. I'm still kickin' it over here...

This last month has been kind of a roller coaster of ups and downs in the studio - I guess the biggest 'up' was that I brought the shop a newer kiln :) Seems I have always wanted a new Skutt kiln, and about three weeks ago this kiln (left in pic) came up on Craig's List at a really, really good price...I jumped on it. I had to drive up past Grogs house to get it (2 hours away), but it was very worth it. Hell, it has only been fired a few times...plus, it even came with 3 complete sets of kiln shelves!! YAY!! It is a little smaller than 'ole blue' there, but that's a good thing for my needs...now I have both these kilns up and running. Hot Damn! (no pun).

On a down hill turn...as some might remember, I had made a nice mold of a Cobra Fang master sculpt I had done...while trying out a 'new' Babalu method of building a block and case for this mold, I thought I was going to be all tricky and try out this new time saving method which I had come up with...nope...shit...it didn't work. The castings that I am getting from these finished molds just aren't good enough for a production run in my opinion.

So now faced with re-building the mold, I thought, well...I might as well change up the master sculpt to something that I liked better while I'm at it. I wasn't very fond of the scales on the first snake, the hood on it, etc. So I took three castings from the bad mold and wiped the detail out on them and started experimenting with changing the scales...one scale at a time...these changes would better tell me how I wanted to change the master sculpt for the next mold go. (below pic)- I started with the one on the far left which has scales that look kind of like the scales on the recently found original Cobra fang mug...still not that fond of it...I wasn't happy until I did the scales and hood on the 3rd snake (far right).

Okay, so that done...I tested some color on them, and BAM! - my second downward turn on this coaster...I opened the peep holes on my new kiln too soon in the cooling down of this glaze firing (a problem I don't have with ole blue) and lost 2 of the 3 snakes :(

I do like the coloring on this 3rd one the best so far...

The day I opened this poorly fired kiln, I thought for sure that this Islander Cobra Fang mug design was CURSED!! The next day, I started hand building (hand carving) 3 more...one scale at a time

So, it looks like this roller coaster is going back in an upward climb...the 3 new ones are glazed and will be fired this week, the new master has been re-sculpted, and the new mold will be going together this week as well. Sorry folks, these 3 newer hand carved prototypes are already spoken for by a few folks who have been waiting a "long time" for this here muggy...The new 'castings' from the new molds will debut at this years Ohana "Luau at the lake" that starts on June 25th in NY...I can't wait for this - it's going to be sooooo FUN!!

Good night -