My system is not decent

Chapter 1666 Rebirth
The clay needed for making porcelain is all transported from the mountains. The price of this material is not high, and it is a natural resource of Longquan.

The soil transported from the mountain is not usable in this way, it has to be washed.

This cleaning process is nothing more than filtering out the impurities.

In order to reduce the iron content in it, a large magnet is used to absorb the granular iron;
The glaze is the natural color of purple gold soil, and now there are very few pure purple gold soil.

With qualified soil and qualified plain embryos, you can start firing in the kiln for the first time.

Prepare the firewood, light the kiln fire, and the smoke will evaporate for a while.

The kiln, which has been built for more than a year, looks like a long dragon from a distance, so the ancient kiln is also called "dragon kiln".

It is this kind of firewood kiln, which inherits the traditional firing method of Longquan celadon.

The kiln mouth that Chen Wenzhe is using now is a replica of the ancient dragon after his design.

In ancient times, if the kiln fire in this kind of kiln mouth was continuous, it could only be fired twice a year.

Therefore, the firing cost of ancient firewood kilns was so high.

Of course, in the Qing Dynasty, especially in the first year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, this kind of dragon kiln has been well developed, and the most important thing is that the number of firings at one time is very large.

At that time, a dragon kiln could be more than 30 meters away, divided into more than 20 chambers, and could burn more than 1 pieces at a time.

After the kaolin is crushed and washed, it is molded into clay, and then goes through multiple processes such as blank trimming, decoration, biscuit firing, and glazing before it can be put into a sagger for kiln.

In the dragon kiln, firewood is used for one day and one night, and then it is cooled for three days and three nights to complete the work.

When firing the kiln, the craftsman cannot relax for a moment.

Together with the kiln workers, they must guard the two sides of the dragon kiln day and night, observe the color of the flames, and replenish firewood through the firewood holes on both sides of each chamber.

Until the temperature reaches 1300 degrees Celsius - which is the temperature for firing a good green glaze color.

Thanks to Longquan's unique ore and kaolin, Longquan celadon can be fired with a warm and jade-like feel.

To achieve this, in addition to the raw materials, the control of the heat is more important.

Especially the temperature, if the temperature control is a little careless, it will deform and produce color difference.

Even if you are experienced and squatting in front of the kiln all the time, the final yield is still only 1/10.

This is the combination of earth and fire, and it is difficult to control artificially, so good works can be encountered but not sought.

Of course, having said that, Chen Wenzhe still insists on inheriting the ancient firing techniques.

During the firing process of more than a thousand years, Longquan Kiln has formed kiln sites represented by Ge Kiln and Di Kiln.

The black-bodied thick-glazed open-piece porcelain that appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty was produced in Ge Kiln, one of the five famous kilns in the Song Dynasty;
The thick glaze with white body and soft blue glaze color comes from the brother kiln.

Among them, Fenqing and Meiziqing represent the beauty of traditional celadon glaze colors.

As green as jade, as bright as a mirror, as thin as paper, and as loud as a chime, these are the classic characteristics of the top Longquan celadon.

In Longquan, celadon is not only a work of art, but also a daily necessities.

For thousands of years, the brilliance of celadon vessels has not only been collected in museums, displayed in shops on West Street, but also decorated coffee tables, dining tables, and balconies of ordinary people.

Glaze color is the soul of celadon.

A good glaze formula requires hundreds of trials to succeed.

Therefore, the glaze making recipes of ancient craftsmen are often passed down from master to apprentice, and kept secret.

And it was much easier for Chen Wenzhe to obtain some good formulas.

For example, the celadon formula, my country established the state-owned Longquan Porcelain Factory and Celadon Research Institute in 1957.

This enabled Longquan celadon production to return to a relatively high level in a very short period of time.

Concentrating on big things has always been the most effective way to tackle key problems.

With the efforts of many parties, the nearly lost Longquan celadon glaze ratio method was basically restored.

Now every celadon manufacturer has their different glaze adjustment methods.

Therefore, the fired glaze color is not exactly the same.

Adjusting the glaze is a secret recipe handed down from the ancestors, which is unknown to outsiders.

But it is definitely not the addition of pigments, because the glaze color is produced in the reducing flame.

In the afternoon, the warm sun slanted.

The semi-finished product that was fired once in the kiln yesterday has already left the kiln.

This is the first process of biscuit firing. I saw the workers skillfully taking out the biscuit-fired green body.

And when it cools down, Chen Wenzhe will put the Jiang embryo body into the glaze barrel with the glaze material for glazing.

After dipping the green body into the glaze slurry, take it out, so that the glaze slurry evenly adheres to the surface of the green body.

Then inject the glaze slurry into the body and swirl it back and forth, so that the glaze slurry covers the inner wall...

After several steps such as swaying glaze, dipping glaze, glaze coating, and spraying glaze, the glaze application is completed.

Thick-glazed celadon requires several layers of glaze, and one layer is fired once, and repeated many times before it is fired.

One issue worth paying attention to here is the firing temperature. Longquan celadon needs to be fired twice. The first time is called plastic firing, which can also be called plain firing.

That is, the embryo of fired celadon, the firing temperature is about 800 degrees, and then glazed after leaving the kiln.

For the second firing, the firing temperature is around 1300 degrees.

Generally, it is more accurate at 1300 degrees. If the temperature is lower by a few degrees, the glaze color will not be transparent enough, that is, it will not be bright enough.

If it is a few degrees higher, the glaze will flow, and it is very likely that the whole kiln will be defective.

Longquan celadon also has a big defect, that is, it is easy to deform due to the problem of fetal soil.

To control this deformation, the most critical thing is the tire.

If the body is thick, it will crack, not to mention that celadon has a unique place in porcelain because of its thin body and thick glaze, but it is too thin and easy to deform.

If these problems are solved, after firing, the glaze color and quality need to be checked.

The most classic essence of Longquan celadon is the glaze color, and the highest state is the glaze that looks like jade but not jade.

In this regard, porcelain makers have been exploring for thousands of years.

Now if we want to regain its glory and even make a breakthrough, technological innovation is essential.

For example, compared with dragon kilns, liquefied gas kilns have the possibility of continuous innovation.

In the 20s, Jingzhen already had a shuttle kiln burning liquefied petroleum gas.

Inspired by this kind of kiln mouth, a new type of kiln with manual control was transformed.

This kind of kiln can solve the problems of impure and unstable glaze color.

The celadon fired by the ancient method represents the inheritance of thousands of years of craftsmanship.

Modern gas kilns make the influencing factors more controllable.

Combined with the breakthrough of glaze preparation technology, there is a revival of contemporary celadon.

From red copper glaze, to high-temperature black glaze, to tiger spot glaze, black glaze...

With the help of modern technology, the design and creativity of modern celadon products are becoming more and more abundant.

Standing on the shoulders of these predecessors, Chen Wenzhe naturally has more choices.

He can get the desired glaze color without relying on experience, trial and error.

However, if he wanted better ones, he had to make repeated comparisons during the firing process.

Only by modifying the formula many times can we make a breakthrough in the research on the preparation technology of traditional Longquan celadon glaze.

Finally, the glaze color that has been washed away over the years is recovered, and the pure plum green, pink green, and iron-bodied Ge Kiln celadon are revived.

(End of this chapter)