One of the glazes sold by Aardvark is called "Vegas Red". It's one of the glazes formulated by Tom Coleman, a local pottery expert. It needs to be fired in a reduction (oxygen starved) environment. So far, I have not had much success.
I tried to do a reduction firing a couple of months ago and the Vegas Red pots came out mostly gray (with hints of red).
Last week I tried a firing procedure used by the University Of California at San Diego's ceramics studio. They have a Geil kiln with an atmosphere controller. That's what I have. The difference is that their's is a DLB-40S (See http://kilns.com) and mine is a smaller DL-18F so I was not surprised when their firing procedure did not work for me. My kiln did not reach the desired temperature within the time allotted so I extended the time. Some of the pots came out mostly gray again.
One of the pots was a large bowl (12 cm high, 32.5 cm wide). Although it did not come out all red it did come out looking good. Here it is. It is resting on a black and white granite counter top.
Top View
Side View
The bowl was thrown using T2 clay from Clay Planet (in San Jose, CA). It is a smooth, tan clay body. The iron from the clay body caused the dark streaks.
I'll try another Vegas Red firing some time but for now I am avoiding it. I'd be interested in hearing how other potters are getting high-fired red results.
