I’ve just joined Orchid forum and haven’t clearly understood forum
system yet. So maybe the question that I will ask is already
answered. I have bought Ian Ferguson’s book about mokume gane
technique and found a strange thing: James Binnion sugests to make a
billet about 3- 12 hours in a kiln, and in the book for all the
compositions it is 60 minutes, logicaly 1 hour is too little, so how
can I determine how long should I leave my kiln working (I have
electrical kiln wich can support exact tempreture for a long time).
And the other question is - what is “ochre”? is it just a simple
paint ( like oil paint or other kind…) or this is some kind of
special paint? maybe someone could post a link with photos of the
paint package or anything. I would be very grateful.
If there will be any answers I hope I will be able to find theme
somewhere in the forum
You need to also purchase a copy of Steve Midgett’s book (if you have
not already). If you look carefully at Ian Ferguson’s book, he is
using a hot isostatic press. This is a whole different ball game in
the making of mokume - shorter firing cycles are more appropriate to
this particular method.
Ochre is a powdered paint pigment available from most jewelry
suppliers as a solder-stop.
Best bet for mokume firing times is to make several experiments based
around the times and temps listed in Steve’s book, and to take LOTS
of DETAILED notes to develop a system that works well for you.
Recently I’ve been using a White Out pen instead of yellow ochre as
my anti-flux. I will say that this is for repair work and assembly,
not Makume. For my purposes it is much easier to work with and the
small pen tip is ideal for controlled applications.
