Recent Projects

01/02/2006
Horse Hair Pieces

After taking a few Raku & Horse Hair seminars, we decided to try our hand at doing horsehair pieces in our studio. The process is pretty simple. The piece is heated to about 1500 degrees then removed from the kiln while still hot and then hair from the mane and tail of a horse is placed on the piece. The hair burns when it touches the piece and leaves a carbon imprint on the piece.

We used a small Cress electric kiln and a pyrometer to gauge the temperature. The first firing took about 45 minutes to an hour to go from a cold kiln (60 degrees) to 1500. The next rounds only took 20 minutes to get up to temperature.

Once the lid is opened, the pieces are removed and placed on a fire proof surface for horse hair application.

We are pretty happy with the results.