My system is not decent

Chapter 1113

In the Yuan Dynasty, the appearance of underglaze red made the real high-temperature copper red enter the controllable range, but the overall red color still cannot be fired.

Therefore, monochromatic red glazed porcelain is much more difficult to fire than painted red porcelain.

Because of this, it was not until the Yongxuan period that official kilns were successfully fired, the first porcelain in world history with a ruby-like color throughout.

For example, the red-glazed high-legged bowl with cloud and dragon pattern printed in Hongwu period of Ming Dynasty is one of the representatives.

There are also bright red glaze dishes handed down from generation to generation, which were successfully fired during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty.

Among them, the most famous one must be Ming Xuande bright red glaze plate.

In the Xuande period, there were also ruby ​​red bottles, bowls, mitral pots, water chestnut washers, and small pots with lotus petals.

In addition to these, there are also some special porcelains, such as gold-painted dragon-pattern plates and gold-painted dragon-pattern bowls.

In addition to using ruby ​​red glaze, the porcelain this time also has gold color, that is, gold painting.

If it was the original, Chen Wenzhe must have avoided this kind of porcelain and would not know how to make it.

It's different now, he can learn the firing technique of Jincai through Sui Hou's Pearl, and with a huge amount of gold in his hand, he naturally makes porcelain if he wants to make it.

It's just that, even if he didn't try firing a few furnaces of porcelain like this, the possibility of firing it successfully is very low.

Not to mention that in the Ming Dynasty, the firing rate at that time was even lower!

Not to mention ruby ​​red glaze, even though the red underglaze porcelain in the early Ming Dynasty was fired in large quantities, there were still many shadows of red that could not be seen at all, which could almost be called black underglaze.

Therefore, for the red production of ceramics, the most important thing is the firing process.

And because of the difference between monochromatic glaze or red painted glazed porcelain, the firing process is also different.

For this reason, red porcelain is divided into two types, one is monochromatic glazed porcelain, that is, the whole body of the porcelain is red without any pattern.

Another kind of red glaze porcelain is to use red pigment to draw patterns, not all red.

On the surface, it seems that fine copper red paint is much more difficult than a single tone.

The former is like using red to paint beautiful patterns on the wall, while the latter only needs to paint the wall.

From the perspective of painting alone, flat painting naturally has no special technical difficulty, but painting requires years of study and training.

However, for the red color on ceramics, the firing process is the most critical technology.

Taking a step back, even if the firing of red painted porcelain fails, the pattern is still there, and you can still enjoy the wonderful picture.

Many painted red porcelains in the early Ming Dynasty failed to be fired and the color of the pattern turned black, but the pattern itself was still wonderful and was treasured by later generations.

But a single red color is different. Poor color rendering of a certain part means the failure of the whole work, not to mention that the whole body cannot be burned red.

Therefore, the whole body of red porcelain is much more difficult to fire than the underglaze red painted with red.

Chen Wenzhe has experience, time, and capital.

Therefore, he did not hesitate to consume a large amount of top-level raw materials, and kept trying firing in the gaps between making other porcelains.

After several times of firing in the kiln, Chen Wenzhe has roughly figured out the firing conditions of ruby ​​red glaze in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

After all, he has almost master-level kiln firing skills, and many things are just unfamiliar, not ignorant.

He will pay attention to every experience of firing failure, as long as he pays attention, he can easily find the problem.

Therefore, at this time, he already knew very well the precautions when firing the kiln.

After all, the most important thing for red glaze is kiln firing, especially temperature control.

For example, the firing atmosphere, the reason why high-temperature red glaze is difficult is that to show a perfect red color, it is necessary to precisely control the firing temperature and atmosphere.

The so-called firing atmosphere refers to the control of the concentration of oxygen and carbon monoxide in the kiln.

Simply put, firing in an oxygen atmosphere is called an oxidizing flame, while firing in a carbon monoxide environment is called a reducing flame.

High-temperature red glaze needs to be fired at a high temperature of 1300°C with a reducing flame.

Why is the whole body red porcelain so difficult to fire?
Under the ancient technical conditions, it is extremely difficult to control the firing temperature and atmosphere.

For example, in ancient times, there was no equipment to measure and control the temperature. The temperature in the kiln depends entirely on the experience of the master.

Master Bazhuo is the potter who is in charge of firing the kiln. When it is fired, it is 1250°C or 1300°C. It is difficult to observe with only eyes.

Of course, the kiln workers gradually developed some methods to assist in judging the temperature.

But the grasp of the heat still depends on experience.

In addition to temperature control, the concentration of carbon monoxide needs to be regulated accordingly.

What is the concentration of carbon monoxide at 1100°C? What is it at 1200°C?
These all need to be constantly adjusted, and what can be adjusted is only the amount of firewood thrown and the speed of air circulation.

The reason why Chen Wenzhe failed to fire it before was because of this.

Although there are many monitoring devices in modern times, he can easily know the temperature inside the kiln, but controlling the temperature and knowing the temperature are completely two different things.

Especially when firewood is put in, there is still air flow, especially the control of carbon monoxide concentration. If there is not enough experience, the number of times of firing is too small, and it is still difficult to accurately grasp it.

You must know that firewood kilns need to be fired for a long time. If there is a problem in any link during the long firing process of dozens of hours, it may lead to the failure of all efforts.

It can be said that every time a kiln is fired, it is like a thrilling battle.

Therefore, before the Ming Dynasty, even if a little bit of red was burned occasionally, it would be admirable, and it was even considered to be the favor of heaven.

And it is probably a hundred times more difficult to burn the whole body red evenly.

Not only is it difficult to fire, but the number that can be fired at one time is also limited.

There is another difficulty that is easily overlooked, that is, within a kiln, the locations that can meet the conditions for firing red glaze are extremely limited.

In the kiln, the temperature and atmosphere of firing at different locations are very different.

When the kiln is full, the kiln worker must consider in advance what location is suitable for what kind of porcelain.

In fact, most places in the kiln are not suitable for placing red glazed porcelain.

Even in the industry, the location suitable for firing red glaze is called "inch golden place".

The difficulty is high, and it cannot be fired in large quantities. It is conceivable that the red glaze is precious.

However, it should be stated that the pigments in the past were all natural minerals, which were difficult to purify and had poor stability.

However, with the modern chemical technology, the purity and stability of the pigments are very high, and it is not difficult to fire them.

This is also the source of Chen Wenzhe's self-confidence when he first started firing the kiln.

It's a pity that his failure rate is still too high, so high that he can't accept it.

This is also something that can't be helped, who made him feel too big?
(End of this chapter)