Office of
Central New York Pottery Company
Pottery at Chittenango, N. Y. Office at Syracuse, N. Y.
Chittenango N. Y., Sept. 1, 1905 My dear Professor,
When I wrote last I was working in Syracuse, I believe, but I am now at Chittenango learning all I can.
We are gradually tearing out the old jiggers, benches, and shelves, and building in new ones to use for whiteware. The difficulties under which we are starting are very great, one of the greatest being the red clay dust which covers everything. It will be sometime before we get rid of it all and of course every speck will make a spot in the ware.
By this mail I am sending you some pieces of the first glast kiln. I think that it is as nice as any ware of its kind I have seen. It is strong and very translucent, although the color is not quite what I would like.
The kiln fireman, who has had experience all over the country said he never had seen ware which would stand up as this has.
In a whole biscuit kiln there was under two dozen pieces which had to be thrown out on account of crookedness, fire cracks etc. In the whole gloss kiln there was not a single crooked piece.
The kiln was drawn Wed. and today some of the ware is crazing a little. Nothing but flat ware seems to craze however, and of course that was given the easiest fire in the gloss, in order to keep it straight, and it must have also had an easy fire in the biscuit as you can see by the sample, for it is not very translucent. This might be caused by heavy “flinting up.”
The glaze matures at cone 6 or better, and the body at cone 10. I will enclose the formula and batch weights of the glaze, and if you have the time I wish you would tell me how to overcome the difficulty.
We have just this last week made our last rock and yellow ware so the future depends entirely on the success of the whiteware.
Yesterday a batch of samples were shipped to the last to one of the big jobbers, who has a $1400 hotel order for us, providing, the ware was satisfactory.
I will be back to school in two weeks, with the determination to accomplish more than ever, although my father is very much pleased with the results of this last year. I remain ever yours, respectfully
R. G. Cowan.
Office of
Central New York Pottery Company
Pottery at Chittenango, N. Y. Office at Syracuse, N. Y.
Syracuse, N. Y.
Glaze no 3. Fritt CaO .45 SiO2 Batch .20eq. = 111 feldspar
Na2O .35 1.6 .40eq. = 24 flint K2O .20 Al2O3 B2O3 .35eq. = 138 Borax
.20 .9 .20eq. = 25 boric acid .45eq. = 45 whiting Glaze .40 fritt Al2O3 SiO2 Batch .40eq. = 107.6 fritt
.15 stone 3.46 .15eq.= 124.0 stone
.10 ZnO (?) .308 B2 O3 .10eq= 8.1 ZnO (?)
.15 PbO .45 .15eq= 39.0 PbCO3
.10 CaO .028eq= 7.0 kaolin
1.32eq= 79.2 Flint
Do you think from the examination of the crazed piece that the crazing can be controlled by the harder firing of both biscuit and gloss or would you change the glaze and how?
I have taken up enough of your time now, so will quit.
By the way, we now live in Chittenango.
