Formerly KV 071. It was used to break up rock and ore, making it easier to extract valuable minerals. The pointed end of the pick axe was used to chip away rock, while the flat end was used to strike the rock for breaking it apart. This one has a short handle. Miners picks were commonly used in the the 19th and early 20th centuries for extracting gold from underground mine tunnels.Used in the Kiewa Valley where prospecting for gold occurred.Formerly KV 071. Cast iron symmetrical pick tool on cast iron with a wooden handle. It has a pointed end and a flat end. It is 12 inches long.gold mining, miners' pick axe, hand tool

Possibly used for cleaning out animal pens.eg. horses and pigs. Used like a hoe but heavier and stronger.Used by residents of the Kiewa ValleyThick steel tool head with hole at one end for the handle and two parallel points. Possibly hand made.pick, double tyne prong pick, farming equipment, hand tool

This medal for bravery, for rescue of the crew from the shipwreck “Eric the Red” on 4th September 1880, was awarded to one of the crew of the steamer S.S. Dawn by the President of the United States in July 1881. The medal is engraved with the name “Nelson Johnson” (the anglicised version of his Swedish name Neils Frederick Yohnson). It was donated to Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village in 2013 by Nelson’s granddaughter. Nelson had migrated from Sweden to Sydney in 1879. The next year in 1880, aged 24, he was a seaman on the steamship Dawn and involved in the rescue of the survivors of the Eric the Red. Nelson Johnson was a crew member of the S.S. Dawn and was one of the rescue team in the dinghy in the early morning of September 4th 1880. Medals were awarded to the Captain and crew of the S.S. Dawn by the President of the United States, through the Consul-general (Mr Oliver M. Spencer), in July 1881 “ … in recognition of their humane efforts in rescuing the 23 survivors of the American built wooden sailing ship, the Eric the Red, on 4th September 1880.” The men were also presented with substantial monetary rewards and gifts. The city of Warrnambool’s care of the survivors was also mentioned by the President at the presentation, saying that “the city hosted and supported the crew ‘most graciously’. Previously, a week after the shipwreck, the Australian Government had also conveyed its thanks to the Captain and crew of the S.S. Dawn “Captain Griffith Jones, S.S. Dawn, The Hon. Mr Clark desires that the thanks of the Government should be conveyed to you for the prompt, persevering and seamanlike qualities displayed by you, your officers and crew in saving the number of lives you did on the occasion referred to. The hon. The Commissioner has also been pleased to award you a souvenir in commemoration of the occasion, and a sum of 65 pounds to be awarded to your officers and crew according to annexed scale. I am, &c, W Collins Rees, for and in the absence of the Chief Harbour Master.” The Awards are as follows: - Crew of DAWN'S lifeboat-Chief Officer, Mr G. Peat, 15 pounds; boat's crew-G. Sterge, A.B., 5 pounds; T. Hammond, A.B., 5 pounds; J. Black, A.B., 5 pounds; H. Edwards, A.B., 5 pounds. Dinghy's Crew-Second Officer, Mr Christie, 10 pounds; boat's crew -F. Lafer, A.B., 5 pounds; W. Johnstone, A.B., 5 pounds; Mr Lear, provedore, 5 pounds; Mr Dove, purser, 5 pounds. Captain Jones receives a piece of plate. (from “Wreck of the ship Eric the Red” by Jack Loney) The medal’s history, according to the Editor of ‘E-Sylum’ (the newsletter of The Numismatic Bibliomania Society “… appears to be an example of an 1880 State Department medal, catalogued as LS-3 (page 322 of R. W. Julian's book, Medals of the United States Mint: The First Century 1792-1892). The reverse is mostly blank for engraving, surrounded by a thin wreath. It was designed by George Morgan, chief engraver for the Philadelphia Mint, and struck in gold, silver and bronze. The one pictured here (in The Standard newspaper, 2nd July 2013) appears to be silver.” The following is an account of the events which led to the awarding of this medal. The American ship Eric the Red was a wooden, three-masted clipper ship. She had 1,580 tons register and was the largest full-rigged ship built at Bath, Maine, USA in 1871. She was built and registered by Arthur Sewall, later to become the partnership E. & A. Sewall, the 51st ship built by this company. The annually-published List of Merchant Vessels of the U.S. shows Bath was still the home port of Eric the Red in 1880. The vessel was named after the Viking discoverer, Eric ‘the Red-haired’ Thorvaldsson, who was the first European to reach the shores of North America (in 980AD). The ship Eric the Red at first traded in coal between America and Britain, and later traded in guano nitrates from South America. In 1879 she was re-metalled and was in first-class condition. On 10th June 1880 (some records say 12th June) Eric the Red departed New York for Melbourne and then Sydney. She had been commissioned by American trade representatives to carry a special cargo of 500 exhibits (1400 tons) – about a quarter to a third of America’s total exhibits - for the U.S.A. pavilion at Melbourne’s first International Exhibition. The exhibits included furniture, ironmongery, wines, chemicals, dental and surgical instruments, paper, cages, bronze lamp trimmings, axles, stamped ware, astronomical and time globes, samples of corn and the choicest of leaf tobacco. Other general cargo included merchandise such as cases of kerosene and turpentine, brooms, Bristol's Sarsaparilla, Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, Wheeler’s thresher machine, axe handles and tools, cases of silver plate, toys, pianos and organs, carriages and Yankee notions. The Eric the Red left New York under the command of Captain Zaccheus Allen (or some records say Captain Jacques Allen) and 24 other crew including the owner’s son third mate Ned Sewall. There were also 2 saloon passengers on board. The ship had been sailing for an uneventful 85 days and the voyage was almost at its end. As Eric the Red approached Cape Otway there was a moderate north-west wind and a hazy and overcast atmosphere. On 4th September 1880 at about 1:30 am Captain Allen sighted the Cape Otway light and was keeping the ship 5-6 miles offshore to stay clear of the hazardous Otway Reef. However, he had badly misjudged his position. The ship hit the Otway Reef about 2 miles out to sea, southwest of the Cape Otway light station. Captain Allen ordered the wheel to be put ‘hard up’ thinking that she might float off the reef. The sea knocked the helmsman away from the wheel, broke the wheel ropes and carried away the rudder. The lifeboats were swamped, the mizzenmast fell, with all of its riggings, then the mainmast also fell and the ship broke in two. Some said that the passenger Vaughan, who was travelling for his health and not very strong, was washed overboard and never seen again. The ship started breaking up. The forward house came adrift with three of the crew on it as well as a longboat, which the men succeeded in launching and keeping afloat by continually bailing with their sea boots. The captain, the third mate (the owner’s son) and others clung to the mizzenmast in the sea. Then the owner’s son was washed away off the mast. Within 10 minutes the rest of the ship was in pieces, completely wrecked, with cargo and wreckage floating in the sea. The captain encouraged the second mate to swim with him to the deckhouse where there were other crew but the second mate wouldn’t go with him. Eventually, the Captain made it to the deckhouse and the men pulled him up. At about 4:30 am the group of men on the deckhouse saw the lights of a steamer and called for help. At the same time, they noticed the second mate and the other man had drifted nearby, still on the spur, and pulled them both onto the wreck. The coastal steamer SS Dawn was returning to Warrnambool from Melbourne, and its sailing time was different to its usual schedule. She was built in 1876 and bought by the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co. in 1877. At the time of this journey, she was commanded by Captain Jones and was sailing between Melbourne and Portland via Warrnambool. The provedore the Dawn, Benjamin Lear, heard cries of distress coming through the portholes of the saloon. He gave the alarm and the engines were stopped. Cries could be heard clearly, coming from the land. Captain Jones sent out crew in two boats and fired off rockets and blue lights to illuminate the area. They picked up the three survivors who were in the long boat from Eric the Red. Two men were picked up out of the water, one being the owner’s son who was clinging to floating kerosene boxes. At daylight, the Dawn then rescued the 18 men from the floating portion of the deckhouse, which had drifted about 4 miles from where they’d struck the reef. Shortly after the rescue the deckhouse drifted onto breakers and was thrown onto rocks at Point Franklin, about 2 miles east of Cape Otway. Captain Jones had signalled to Cape Otway lighthouse the number of the Eric the Red and later signalled that there was a wreck at Otway Reef but there was no response from the lighthouse. The captain and crew of the Dawn spent several more hours searching unsuccessfully for more survivors, even going back as far as Apollo Bay. On board the Dawn the exhausted men received care and attention to their needs and wants, including much-needed clothing. Captain Allen was amongst the 23 battered and injured men who were rescued and later taken to Warrnambool for care. Warrnambool’s mayor and town clerk offered them all hospitality, the three badly injured men going to the hospital for care and others to the Olive Branch Hotel, then on to Melbourne. Captain Allen’s leg injury prevented him from going ashore so he and three other men travelled on the Dawn to Portland. They were met by the mayor who also treated them all with great kindness. Captain Allen took the train back to Melbourne then returned to America. Those saved were Captain Zaccheus Allen (or Jacques Allen), J. Darcy chief mate, James F. Lawrence second mate, Ned Sewall third mate and owner’s son, John French the cook, C. Nelson sail maker, Clarence W. New passenger, and able seamen Dickenson, J. Black, Denis White, C. Herbert, C. Thompson, A. Brooks, D. Wilson, J. Ellis, Q. Thompson, C. Newman, W. Paul, J. Davis, M. Horenleng, J. Ogduff, T. W. Drew, R. Richardson. Four men had lost their lives; three of them were crew (Gus Dahlgreen ship’s carpenter, H. Ackman steward, who drowned in his cabin, and George Silver seaman) and one a passenger (J. B. Vaughan). The body of one of them had been found washed up at Cape Otway and was later buried in the lighthouse cemetery; another body was seen on an inaccessible ledge. Twelve months later the second mate James F. Lawrence, from Nova Scotia passed away in the Warrnambool district; an obituary was displayed in the local paper. Neither the ship nor its cargo was insured. The ship was worth about £15,000 and the cargo was reportedly worth £40,000; only about £2,000 worth had been recovered. Cargo and wreckage washed up at Apollo Bay, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Western Port and according to some reports, even as far away as the beaches of New Zealand. The day after the wreck the government steamship Pharos was sent from Queenscliff to clear the shipping lanes of debris that could be a danger to ships. The large midship deckhouse of the ship was found floating in a calm sea near Henty Reef. Items such as an American chair, a ladder and a nest of boxes were all on top of the deckhouse. As it was so large and could cause danger to passing ships, Captain Payne had the deckhouse towed towards the shore just beyond Apollo Bay. Between Apollo Bay and Blanket Bay, the captain and crew of Pharos collected Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, nests of boxes, bottles of Bristol’s sarsaparilla, pieces of common American chairs, axe handles, a Wheelers’ Patent thresher and a sailor’s trunk with the words “A. James” on the front. A ship’s flag-board bearing the words “Eric the Red” was found on the deckhouse; finally, those on board the Pharos had the name of the wrecked vessel. During this operation, Pharos came across the government steamer Victoria and also a steamer S.S. Otway, both of which were picking up flotsam and wreckage. A whole side of the hull and three large pieces of the other side of the hull, with some of the copper sheathing stripped off, had floated onto Point Franklin. Some of the vessels' yards and portions of her masts were on shore. The pieces of canvas attached to the yards and masts confirmed that the vessel had been under sail. The beach there was piled with debris several feet high. There were many cases of Diamond Oil kerosene, labelled R. W. Cameron and Company, New York. There were also many large planks of red pine, portions of a small white boat and a large, well-used oar. Other items found ashore included sewing machines (some consigned to ‘Long and Co.”) and notions, axe and scythe handles, hay forks, wooden pegs, rolls of wire (some branded “T.S” and Co, Melbourne”), kegs of nails branded “A.T. and Co.” from the factory of A. Field and Son, Taunton, Massachusetts, croquet balls and mallets, buggy fittings, rat traps, perfumery, cutlery and Douay Bibles, clocks, bicycles, chairs, a fly wheel, a cooking stove, timber, boxes, pianos, organs and a ladder. (Wooden clothes pegs drifted in for many years). There seemed to be no personal luggage or clothing. The Pharos encountered a long line, about one and a half miles, of f locating wreckage about 10 miles off land, southeast of Cape Otway, and in some places about 40 feet wide. It seemed that more than half of it was from Eric the Red. The ship’s crew rescued 3 cases that were for the Melbourne Exhibition and other items from amongst the debris. There were also chairs, doors, musical instruments, washing boards, nests of trunks and flycatchers floating in the sea. Most of the goods were saturated and smelt of kerosene. A section of the hull lies buried in the sand at Parker River Beach. An anchor with a chain is embedded in the rocks east of Point Franklin and a second anchor, thought to be from Eric the Red, is on display at the Cape Otway light station. (There is a photograph of a life belt on the verandah of Rivernook Guest House in Princetown with the words “ERIC THE RED / BOSTON”. This is rather a mystery as the ship was registered in Bath, Maine, USA.) Parts of the ship are on display at Bimbi Park Caravan Park and at Apollo Bay Museum. Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village also has part of the helm (steering wheel), a carved wooden sword (said to be the only remaining portion of the ship’s figurehead; further research is currently being carried out), a door, a metal rod, samples of wood and this medal awarded for the rescue of the crew. Much of the wreckage was recovered by the local residents before police and other authorities arrived at the scene. Looters went to great effort to salvage goods, being lowered down the high cliff faces to areas with little or no beach to collect items from the wreckage, their mates above watching out for dangerous waves. A Tasmanian newspaper reports on a court case in Stawell, Victoria, noting a man who was caught 2 months later selling tobacco from the wreckage of Eric the Red. Some of the silverware is still treasured by descendants of Mr Mackenzie who was given these items by officials for his help in securing the cargo. The gifts included silver coffee and teapots, half a dozen silver serviette rings and two sewing machines. A Mr G.W. Black has in his possession a medal and a purse that was awarded to his father, another Dawn crew member who was part of the rescue team. The medal is similarly inscribed and named “To John Black ….” (from “Shipwrecks” by Margaret E. Mackenzie, 3rd edition, published 1964). The wreck and cargo were sold to a Melbourne man who salvaged a quantity of high-quality tobacco and dental and surgical instruments. Timbers from the ship were salvaged and used in the construction of houses and shed around Apollo Bay, including a guest house, Milford House (since burnt down in bushfires), which had furniture, fittings and timber on the dining room floor from the ship. A 39.7-foot-long trading ketch, the Apollo, was also built from its timbers by Mr Burgess in 1883 and subsequently used in Tasmanian waters. It was the first attempt at shipbuilding in Apollo Bay. In 1881 a red light was installed about 300 feet above sea level at the base of the Cape Otway lighthouse to warn ships when they were too close to shore; It would not be visible unless a ship came within 3 miles from it. This has proved to be an effective warning. Nelson Johnson married Elizabeth Howard in 1881 and they had 10 children, the father of the medal’s donor being the youngest. They lived in 13 Tichbourne Place, South Melbourne, Victoria. Nelson died in 1922 in Fitzroy Victoria, age 66. In 1895 the owners of the S.S. Dawn, the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co., wound up and sold out to the Belfast Company who took over the Dawn for one year before selling her to Howard Smith. She was condemned and sunk in Suva in 1928. The State Library of Victoria has a lithograph in its collection depicting the steamer Dawn and the shipwrecked men, titled. "Wreck of the ship Eric the Red, Cape Otway: rescue of the crew by the Dawn". The medal for bravery is associated with the ship the “The Eric the Red which is historically significant as one of Victoria's major 19th century shipwrecks. (Heritage Victoria Eric the Red; HV ID 239) The wreck led to the provision of an additional warning light placed below the Cape Otway lighthouse to alert mariners to the location of Otway Reef. The site is archaeologically significant for its remains of a large and varied cargo and ship's fittings being scattered over a wide area. The site is recreationally and aesthetically significant as it is one of the few sites along this coast where tourists can visit identifiable remains of a large wooden shipwreck, and for its location set against the background of Cape Otway, Bass Strait, and the Cape Otway lighthouse.“ (Victorian Heritage Database Registration Number S239, Official Number 8745 USA) This medal was awarded to Nelson Johnson by the U.S. President for bravery in the rescue of the Eric the Red crew. The obverse of the round, solid silver medal has an inscription around the rim. In the centre of the medal is the head of Liberty to the left, hair in a bun, with a sprig of leaves in the top left of a band around her head. There is a 6-pointed star below the portrait, between the start and end of the inscription. There are two raised areas on the rim, horizontally opposite each other, from the edge to just below the lettering and coinciding with the holes drilled in the edge. Slightly right of the top is a round indentation in the rim. The reverse has a wreath of leaves as a border, joined at the bottom by a ribbon bow. In the centre of the medal is an inscription, decorated with 3-pronged design and dots. The edge is plain with 2 small, rough and uneven holes horizontally opposite to each other, as though they had been used for mounting the medal at some stage. The medal has a matte finish on both sides and is slightly pitted and scratched.“PRESENTED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES” around the perimeter of the obverse of the medal. “TO / Nelson Johnson, / seaman of the British, / str “Dawn”, for bravery, / at risk of life, / in / rescuing the crew of / the American Ship / “Eric the Red.” “M” on obverse, truncation of the portraitwarrnambool, flagstaff hill, flagstaff hill maritime village, maritime museum, shipwreck coast, great ocean road, shipwreck artefact, eric the red, zaccheus allen, sewall, 1880, melbourne exhibition, cape otway, otway reef, victorian shipwreck, medal, nelson johnson, neils frederick yohnson, s.s. dawn, george morgan, hero

Sad irons of the 19th century were so named because of the weight 1.8Kg that was needed to press wrinkled clothes and sheets. They were made of solid metal, including the handle. When the iron was heated, this meant that the handle would also heat up. The user would have to use a thick cloth or a mitt of some sort before they could pick up the iron. Even so, burns and blisters, as well as strained, tired arms, were a normal part of the “ironing day.” Mrs Mary Florence Potts of Ottumwa, Iowa, brought a change to the world of ironing. At the age of 19, in 1870, she invented her first sad iron. It had a hollow metal body that could be filled with a non-conducting material such as plaster of Paris. In 1871, Mary invented the removable wood handle, so that it could be changed from the cool iron to one that was hot and ready to use. A final improvement was the shape: Mary made both ends pointed so its user could iron in either direction. All of these inventions were patented under her name, a rarity for the time. Mary, with the help of her husband, tried unsuccessfully to market her invention on her own. It wasn't until she sold the sales rights to the American Manufacturing Company that sales took off. Advertised as "Mrs Potts' sad iron," it became a sensation. The company manufactured the iron from about 1876 to 1951. Mrs Potts' sad iron became a household word and a standard for future inventors to have to surpass. This didn't happen until 1882 when Henry W. Seely patented the first electric iron. The item is significant not only as a usable domestic tool, but it was, at the time of its creation, a revolutionary labour-saving device. Mrs Potts invention remains associated with a housewife's answer to the domestic drudgery of ironing.Iron,"Mrs Potts" pattern iron. Semi-circular or 'D' shaped wood handle and wood knob.Mrs Pottsflagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked coast, flagstaff hill maritime museum, flagstaff hill maritime village, great ocean road, iron, clothes iron, flat iron, laundry, sad iron, mrs potts

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/ The bowl is an example of kitchenware used in the 19th century and still in use today.Bowl white ceramic. Crack on side. Badly stained.Backstamp very faint and unable to be read.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, mixing bowl, food preparation, kitchen equipment, ceramic

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/ This bowl is an example of kitchenware used in the 19th century and still in use today.Bowl white ceramic plain that has two sets of edging around lip. Inside bowl has plaster designed to look like cooking mixture.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, kitchen equipment, ceramic

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/This bowl was made by renowned pottery company J & G Meakin of England. The firm was established in the mid-1800's. The bowl is an example of kitchenware used in the 19th century and still in use today.Bowl; white ceramic, round and tapering inwards towards base. Made by J and G Meakin England.On base, 'Ironstone China Reg SOL 391413' with symbolflagstaff hill, flagstaff hill maritime museum and village, warrnambool, maritime museum, maritime village, great ocean road, shipwreck coast, mixing bowl, food preparation, j & g meakin, pottery, stoke-on-trent, kitchen equipment, ceramic

Fireplace tongs were used to add wood to the fireplace as well as break down the crackling wood to add more oxygen to growing flames. Of the four tools that were usually found in an upright fireplace set, tongs had the biggest design variation. Some tongs looked like medical calipers that were rounded at the bottom, while others were almost like metronomes with their rectangular shapes. https://www.lovetoknow.com/home/antiques-collectibles/vintage-antique-fireplace-tools Tongs are tools used to handle items, and generally move the item from one place to another, or turn things, like a piece of meat on a barbecue. Tongs usually have flat ends to pick up items without damaging them and to grip onto the items easily, however, some tongs have claws or toothed ends to grab more bulky and slippery items. Tongs are used mainly for handling food or hot items. Modern tongs are usually made from plastic, metal, stainless steel, or other material, depending on their purpose. Originally, tongs were probably wood sticks that eventually became metal sticks around 3000 BC to handle hot items in a fire Tongs are used to extend the hand or as a replacement handler for potentially dangerous items. Tongs usually have a sprung end so that the operator is required to squeeze the middle of the tongs to grab hold of an item, or they have a pivot which requires the user to squeeze the handles at the end to grip onto items, these being more effective at holding heavy items due to the extra force able to be applied. There are many types of tongs including barbecue tongs, salad tongs, blacksmith tongs, crucible tongs, ice cube tongs, sugar cube tongs and fire tongs. Tongs are often called ‘a pair of tongs’ and the word comes from the Old English, ‘tange’ or ‘tang’, meaning ‘that which bites’. There is evidence of Egyptians using metal rods and tong like tools to hold objects over fire, in around 1450 BC. https://tenrandomfacts.com/tongs/Fire tongs are still used with most open fires in homes.Brass fire tongs with holding clip and flat rounded handle at the end.None.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, fireplace tools, tongs

The author, William Morgans, was a lecturer on mining at the Bristol School of Mines. The owner of the book, William Baragwanath, was a former student of the Ballarat School of Mines who held the following positions: Department of Mines (1897-1922); director of the geological survey (1922-24); chief mining surveyor (1924-32); secretary for mines (1932-34); chief mining surveyor (1934-43); consultant to the Department of Mines (1943-50); President, Royal Society of Victoria (1943-44), councillor of the Ballarat School of Mines (1916-50).Hard cover book of 207 pages with buff cloth cover. The books covers materials andf processes used in the manufacture of tools, special uses, qualities and efficiciency. It includes 235 wood engravings of mining tools drawn to scale. Tools include borers, hammers, sledges, picks, shovels, spades, saws, helves and handles.Title page handwritten in ink 'W.B.' [William Baragwanath]mining, tools, ballarat school of mines, geology, bristol school of mines, government geologist, william baragwanath

The wooden door was salvaged from the wreck of the sailing ship Eric the Red, which was a wooden, three masted clipper ship. Eric the Red was the largest full-rigged ship built at Bath, Maine, USA in 1871, having had a 1,580 tons register. She was built and registered by Arthur Sewall, later to become the partnership E. & A. Sewall, the 51st ship built by this company. The annually-published List of Merchant Vessels of the U.S. shows Bath was still the home port of Eric the Red in 1880. The vessel was named after the Viking discoverer, Eric the Red, who was the first European to reach the shores of North America (in 980AD). The ship Eric the Red at first traded in coal between America and Britain, and later traded in guano nitrates from South America. In 1879 she was re-metalled and was in first class condition. On 10th June 1880 (some records say 12th June) Eric the Red departed New York for Melbourne and then Sydney. She had been commissioned by American trade representatives to carry a special cargo of 500 exhibits (1400 tons) – about a quarter to a third of America’s total exhibits - from America for the U.S.A. pavilion at Melbourne’s first International Exhibition. The exhibits included furniture, ironmongery, wines, chemicals, dental and surgical instruments, paper, cages, bronze lamp trimmings, axles, stamped ware, astronomical and time globes, samples of corn and the choicest of leaf tobacco. Other general cargo included merchandise such as cases of kerosene and turpentine, brooms, Bristol's Sarsaparilla, Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, Wheeler’s thresher machine, axe handles and tools, cases of silver plate, toys, pianos and organs, carriages and Yankee notions. The Eric the Red left New York under the command of Captain Z. Allen (or some records say Captain Jacques Allen) and 24 other crew including the owner’s son third mate Ned Sewall. There were 2 saloon passengers also. The ship had been sailing for an uneventful 85 days and the voyage was almost at its end. On 4th September 1880 the Eric the Red approached Cape Otway with a moderate north-west wind and hazy and overcast atmosphere. Around 1:30am Captain Allen sighted the Cape Otway light and was keeping the ship 5-6 miles offshore to stay clear of the hazardous Otway Reef. However he had badly misjudged his position. The ship hit the Otway Reef about 2 miles out to sea, south west of the Cape Otway light station. He ordered the wheel to be put ‘hard up’ thinking that she might float off the reef. A heavy sea knocked the man away from the wheel, broke the wheel ropes and carried away the rudder. The sea swamped the lifeboats. The mizzenmast fell, with all of its rigging, then the mainmast also fell and the ship broke in two. Some said that the passenger Vaughan, who was travelling for his health and not very strong, was washed overboard and never seen again. The ship started breaking up. The forward house came adrift with three of the crew on it as well as a longboat, which the men succeeded in launching and keeping afloat by continually bailing with their sea boots. The captain, the third mate (the owner’s son) and others clung to the mizzenmast in the sea. Then the owner’s son was washed away off the mast. Within 10 minutes the rest of the ship was in pieces, completely wrecked, with cargo and wreckage floating in the sea. The captain encouraged the second mate to swim with him to the deckhouse where there were other crew but the second mate wouldn’t go with him. Eventually the Captain made it to the deckhouse and the men pulled him up. At about 4:30am the group of men on the deckhouse saw the lights of a steamer and called for help. At the same time they noticed the second mate and the other man had drifted nearby, still on the spur, and pulled them both onto the wreck. The coastal steamer Dawn was returning to Warrnambool from Melbourne, its sailing time different to its usual schedule. Captain Jones sent out two life boats, and fired off rockets and blue lights to illuminate the area. They picked up the three survivors who were in the long boat from Eric the Red. Two men were picked up out of the water, one being the owner’s son who was clinging to floating kerosene boxes. At daylight the Dawn then rescued the 18 men from the floating portion of the deckhouse, which had drifted about 4 miles from where they’d struck the reef. Shortly after the rescue the deckhouse drifted onto breakers and was thrown onto rocks at Point Franklin, about 2 miles east of Cape Otway. Captain Jones had signalled to Cape Otway lighthouse the number of the Eric the Red and later signalled that there was a wreck at Otway Reef but there was no response from the lighthouse. The captain and crew of the Dawn spent several more hours searching unsuccessfully for more survivors, even going back as far as Apollo Bay. On board the Dawn the exhausted men received care and attention to their needs and wants, including much needed clothing. Captain Allen was amongst the 23 battered and injured men who were rescued and later taken to Warrnambool for care. Warrnambool’s mayor and town clerk offered them all hospitality, the three badly injured men going to the hospital for care and others to the Olive Branch Hotel, then on to Melbourne. Captain Allen’s leg injury prevented him from going ashore so he and three other men travelled on the Dawn to Portland. They were met by the mayor who also treated them all with great kindness. Captain Allen took the train back to Melbourne then returned to America. Those saved were Captain Z. Allen (or Jacques Allen), J. Darcy chief mate, James F. Lawrence second mate, Ned Sewall third mate and owner’s son, John French the cook, C. Nelson sail maker, Clarence W. New passenger, and the able seamen Dickenson, J. Black, Denis White, C. Herbert, C. Thompson, A. Brooks, D. Wilson, J. Ellis, Q. Thompson, C. Newman, W. Paul, J. Davis, M. Horenleng, J. Ogduff, T. W. Drew, R. Richardson. Four men had lost their lives; three of them were crew (Gus Dahlgreen ship’s carpenter, H. Ackman steward, who drowned in his cabin, and George Silver seaman) and one a passenger (J. B. Vaughan). The body of one of them had been found washed up at Cape Otway and was later buried in the lighthouse cemetery; another body was seen on an inaccessible ledge. Twelve months later the second mate James F. Lawrence, from Nova Scotia, passed away in the Warrnambool district; an obituary was displayed in the local paper. The captain and crew of the Dawn were recognised by the United States Government in July 1881 for their humane efforts, being thanked and presented with substantial monetary rewards, medals and gifts. Neither the ship, nor its cargo, was insured. The ship was worth about £15,000 and the cargo was reportedly worth £40,000; only about £2,000 worth had been recovered. Cargo and wreckage washed up at Apollo Bay, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Western Port and according to some reports, even as far away as the beaches of New Zealand. The day after the wreck the government steam ship Pharos was sent from Queenscliff to clear the shipping lanes of debris that could be a danger to ships. The large midship deckhouse of the ship was found floating in a calm sea near Henty Reef. Items such as an American chair, a ladder and a nest of boxes were all on top of the deckhouse. As it was so large and could cause danger to passing ships, Captain Payne had the deckhouse towed towards the shore just beyond Apollo Bay. Between Apollo Bay and Blanket Bay the captain and crew of Pharos collected Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, nests of boxes, bottles of Bristol’s sarsaparilla, pieces of common American chairs, axe handles, a Wheelers’ Patent thresher and a sailor’s trunk with the words “A. James” on the front. A ship’s flag-board bearing the words “Eric the Red” was found on the deckhouse; finally those on board the Pharos had the name of the wrecked vessel. During this operation Pharos came across the government steamer Victoria and also a steamer S.S. Otway, both of which were picking up flotsam and wreckage. A whole side of the hull and three large pieces of the other side of the hull, with some of the copper sheathing stripped off, had floated on to Point Franklin. Some of the vessels yards and portions of her masts were on shore. The pieces of canvas attached to the yards and masts confirmed that the vessel had been under sail. The beach there was piled with debris several feet high. There were many cases of Diamond Oil kerosene, labelled R. W. Cameron and Company, New York. There were also many large planks of red pine, portions of a small white boat and a large, well-used oar. Other items found ashore included sewing machines (some consigned to ‘Long and Co.”) and notions, axe and scythe handles, hay forks, wooden pegs, rolls of wire (some branded “T.S” and Co, Melbourne”), kegs of nails branded “A.T. and Co.” from the factory of A. Field and Son, Taunton, Massachusetts, croquet balls and mallets, buggy fittings, rat traps, perfumery, cutlery and Douay Bibles, clocks, bicycles, chairs, a fly wheel, a cooking stove, timber, boxes, pianos, organs and a ladder. (Wooden clothes pegs drifted in for many years). There seemed to be no personal luggage or clothing. The Pharos encountered a long line, about one and a half miles, of floating wreckage about 10 miles off land, south east of Cape Otway, and in some places about 40 feet wide. It seemed that more than half of it was from Eric the Red. The ship’s crew rescued 3 cases that were for the Melbourne Exhibition and other items from amongst the debris. There were also chairs, doors, musical instruments, washing boards, nests of trunks and fly catchers floating in the sea. Most of the goods were saturated and smelt of kerosene. A section of the hull lies buried in the sand at Parker River Beach. An anchor with chain is embedded in the rocks east of Point Franklin and a second anchor, thought to be from Eric the Red, is on display at the Cape Otway light station. (There is a photograph of a life belt on the verandah of Rivernook Guest House in Princetown with the words “ERIC THE RED / BOSTON”. This is rather a mystery as the ship was registered in Bath, Maine, USA.) Parts of the ship are on display at Bimbi Park Caravan Park and at Apollo Bay Museum. Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village also has part of the helm (steering wheel), a carved wooden sword (said to be the only remaining portion of the ship’s figurehead; further research is currently being carried out), a door, a metal rod and samples of wood. Much of the wreckage was recovered by the local residents before police and other authorities arrived at the scene. Looters went to great effort to salvage goods, being lowered down the high cliff faces to areas with little or no beach to collect items from the wreckage, their mates above watching out for dangerous waves. A Tasmanian newspaper reports on a court case in Stawell, Victoria, noting a man who was caught 2 months later selling tobacco from the wreckage of Eric the Red. Some of the silverware is still treasured by descendants of Mr Mackenzie who was given these items by officials for his help in securing the cargo. The gifts included silver coffee and tea pots, half a dozen silver serviette rings and two sewing machines. The wreck and cargo were sold to a Melbourne man who salvaged a quantity of high quality tobacco and dental and surgical instruments. Timbers from the ship were salvaged and used in the construction of houses and sheds around Apollo Bay, including a guest house, Milford House (since burnt down in bushfires), which had furniture, fittings and timber on the dining room floor from the ship. A 39.7 foot long trading ketch, the Apollo, was also built from its timbers by Mr Burgess in 1883 and subsequently used in Tasmanian waters. It was the first attempt at ship building in Apollo bay. In 1881 a red light was installed about 300 feet above sea level at the base of the Cape Otway lighthouse to warn ships when they were too close to shore; It would not be visible unless a ship came within 3 miles from it. This has proved to be an effective warning. The State Library of Victoria has a lithograph in its collection depicting the steamer Dawn and the shipwrecked men, titled. "Wreck of the ship Eric the Red, Cape Otway: rescue of the crew by the Dawn". “The Eric the Red is historically significant as one of Victoria's major 19th century shipwrecks. (Heritage Victoria Eric the Red; HV ID 239) The wreck led to the provision of an additional warning light placed below the Cape Otway lighthouse to alert mariners to the location of Otway Reef. The site is archaeologically significant for its remains of a large and varied cargo and ship's fittings being scattered over a wide area. The site is recreationally and aesthetically significant as it is one of the few sites along this coast where tourists can visit identifiable remains of a large wooden shipwreck, and for its location set against the background of Cape Otway, Bass Strait, and the Cape Otway lighthouse.“ (Victorian Heritage Database Registration Number S239, Official Number 8745 USA) Door from the wreck of the ship Eric the Red. The wooden singular rectangular door includes three insert panel sections. The top section is square shaped and is missing its panel or glass. The centre timber panel is about a third of the height of the top panel and the bottom timber panel is approximately equal in height to the total height of the two upper panels. The door fastenings include both a metal door latch and traditional door bolt. They are both attached to the front right hand side of the door. The bolt is just below the top panel, and the door latch is in approximately the centre of that side. The door latch has a round mark where a handle could have been attached. The wood of the door has scraping marks in a semi-circle around the door latch where the latch has swung around on its one remaining fastening and grazed the surface. There is a metal hinge at the top section of the door on the opposite side to the latch. The painted surface has been scraped back to expose the wood. The door is shorter than the average height of a person. On the reverse of the door there are lines on the panels, just inside their edges, is what appears to be pencil. The door is not aligned straight but is skew to centre.warrnambool, flagstaff hill, flagstaff hill maritime village, maritime museum, shipwreck coast, great ocean road, shipwreck artefact, eric the red, jaques allen, sewall, 1880, melbourne exhibition 1880, cape otway, otway reef, victorian shipwreck, bass strait, eric-the-red, door

This piece of timber from the ship Eric the Red has been eaten through by the marine animals called Teredo Worms, sometimes called sea worms or ‘termites of the sea’. The worms bore holes into wood that is immersed in sea water and bacteria inside the worms digest the wood. Shipbuilders tried to prevent this problem by using coatings of tar, wax, lead or pitch. In the 18th and 19th centuries the outside of their ships were sheathed in copper or a combination of copper and zinc (called Muntz metal) and would be re-metalled periodically to ensure the sheathing would remain effective. In more recent times the ships are protected with a toxic coating. The American ship Eric the Red was a wooden, three masted clipper ship. She had 1,580 tons register and was the largest full-rigged ship built at Bath, Maine, USA in 1871. She was built and registered by Arthur Sewall, later to become the partnership E. & A. Sewall, the 51st ship built by this company. The annually-published List of Merchant Vessels of the U.S. shows Bath was still the home port of Eric the Red in 1880. The vessel was named after the Viking discoverer, Eric ‘the Red-haired’ Thorvaldsson , who was the first European to reach the shores of North America (in 980AD). The ship Eric the Red at first traded in coal between America and Britain, and later traded in guano nitrates from South America. In 1879 she was re-metalled and was in first class condition. On 10th June 1880 (some records say 12th June) Eric the Red departed New York for Melbourne and then Sydney. She had been commissioned by American trade representatives to carry a special cargo of 500 exhibits (1400 tons) – about a quarter to a third of America’s total exhibits - for the U.S.A. pavilion at Melbourne’s first International Exhibition. The exhibits included furniture, ironmongery, wines, chemicals, dental and surgical instruments, paper, cages, bronze lamp trimmings, axles, stamped ware, astronomical and time globes, samples of corn and the choicest of leaf tobacco. Other general cargo included merchandise such as cases of kerosene and turpentine, brooms, Bristol's Sarsaparilla, Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, Wheeler’s thresher machine, axe handles and tools, cases of silver plate, toys, pianos and organs, carriages and Yankee notions. The Eric the Red left New York under the command of Captain Zaccheus Allen (or some records say Captain Jacques Allen) and 24 other crew including the owner’s son third mate Ned Sewall. There were also 2 saloon passengers on board. The ship had been sailing for an uneventful 85 days and the voyage was almost at its end. As Eric the Red approached Cape Otway there was a moderate north-west wind and hazy and overcast atmosphere. On 4th September 1880 at about 1:30am Captain Allen sighted the Cape Otway light and was keeping the ship 5-6 miles offshore to stay clear of the hazardous Otway Reef. However he had badly misjudged his position. The ship hit the Otway Reef about 2 miles out to sea, south west of the Cape Otway light station. Captain Allen ordered the wheel to be put ‘hard up’ thinking that she might float off the reef. The sea knocked the helmsman away from the wheel, broke the wheel ropes and carried away the rudder. The lifeboats were swamped, the mizzenmast fell, with all of its rigging, then the mainmast also fell and the ship broke in two. Some said that the passenger Vaughan, who was travelling for his health and not very strong, was washed overboard and never seen again. The ship started breaking up. The forward house came adrift with three of the crew on it as well as a longboat, which the men succeeded in launching and keeping afloat by continually bailing with their sea boots. The captain, the third mate (the owner’s son) and others clung to the mizzenmast in the sea. Then the owner’s son was washed away off the mast. Within 10 minutes the rest of the ship was in pieces, completely wrecked, with cargo and wreckage floating in the sea. The captain encouraged the second mate to swim with him to the deckhouse where there were other crew but the second mate wouldn’t go with him. Eventually the Captain made it to the deckhouse and the men pulled him up. At about 4:30am the group of men on the deckhouse saw the lights of a steamer and called for help. At the same time they noticed the second mate and the other man had drifted nearby, still on the spur, and pulled them both onto the wreck. The coastal steamer SS Dawn was returning to Warrnambool from Melbourne, its sailing time different to its usual schedule. She was built in 1876 and bought by the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co. in 1877. At the time of this journey she was commanded by Captain Jones, and was sailing between Melbourne and Portland via Warrnambool. The provedore of the Dawn, Benjamin Lear, heard cries of distress coming through the portholes of the saloon. He gave the alarm and the engines were stopped. Cries could be heard clearly, coming from the land. Captain Jones sent out crew in two boats, and fired off rockets and blue lights to illuminate the area. They picked up the three survivors who were in the long boat from Eric the Red. Two men were picked up out of the water, one being the owner’s son who was clinging to floating kerosene boxes. At daylight the Dawn then rescued the 18 men from the floating portion of the deckhouse, which had drifted about 4 miles from where they’d struck the reef. Shortly after the rescue the deckhouse drifted onto breakers and was thrown onto rocks at Point Franklin, about 2 miles east of Cape Otway. Captain Jones had signalled to Cape Otway lighthouse the number of the Eric the Red and later signalled that there was a wreck at Otway Reef but there was no response from the lighthouse. The captain and crew of the Dawn spent several more hours searching unsuccessfully for more survivors, even going back as far as Apollo Bay. On board the Dawn the exhausted men received care and attention to their needs and wants, including much needed clothing. Captain Allen was amongst the 23 battered and injured men who were rescued and later taken to Warrnambool for care. Warrnambool’s mayor and town clerk offered them all hospitality, the three badly injured men going to the hospital for care and others to the Olive Branch Hotel, then on to Melbourne. Captain Allen’s leg injury prevented him from going ashore so he and three other men travelled on the Dawn to Portland. They were met by the mayor who also treated them all with great kindness. Captain Allen took the train back to Melbourne then returned to America. Those saved were Captain Zaccheus Allen (or Jacques Allen), J. Darcy chief mate, James F. Lawrence second mate, Ned Sewall third mate and owner’s son, John French the cook, C. Nelson sail maker, Clarence W. New passenger, and the able seamen Dickenson, J. Black, Denis White, C. Herbert, C. Thompson, A. Brooks, D. Wilson, J. Ellis, Q. Thompson, C. Newman, W. Paul, J. Davis, M. Horenleng, J. Ogduff, T. W. Drew, R. Richardson. Four men had lost their lives; three of them were crew (Gus Dahlgreen ship’s carpenter, H. Ackman steward, who drowned in his cabin, and George Silver seaman) and one a passenger (J. B. Vaughan). The body of one of them had been found washed up at Cape Otway and was later buried in the lighthouse cemetery; another body was seen on an inaccessible ledge. Twelve months later the second mate James F. Lawrence, from Nova Scotia, passed away in the Warrnambool district; an obituary was displayed in the local paper. Neither the ship, nor its cargo, was insured. The ship was worth about £15,000 and the cargo was reportedly worth £40,000; only about £2,000 worth had been recovered. Cargo and wreckage washed up at Apollo Bay, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Western Port and according to some reports, even as far away as the beaches of New Zealand. The day after the wreck the government steam ship Pharos was sent from Queenscliff to clear the shipping lanes of debris that could be a danger to ships. The large midship deckhouse of the ship was found floating in a calm sea near Henty Reef. Items such as an American chair, a ladder and a nest of boxes were all on top of the deckhouse. As it was so large and could cause danger to passing ships, Captain Payne had the deckhouse towed towards the shore just beyond Apollo Bay. Between Apollo Bay and Blanket Bay the captain and crew of Pharos collected Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, nests of boxes, bottles of Bristol’s sarsaparilla, pieces of common American chairs, axe handles, a Wheelers’ Patent thresher and a sailor’s trunk with the words “A. James” on the front. A ship’s flag-board bearing the words “Eric the Red” was found on the deckhouse; finally those on board the Pharos had the name of the wrecked vessel. During this operation Pharos came across the government steamer Victoria and also a steamer S.S. Otway, both of which were picking up flotsam and wreckage. A whole side of the hull and three large pieces of the other side of the hull, with some of the copper sheathing stripped off, had floated on to Point Franklin. Some of the vessels yards and portions of her masts were on shore. The pieces of canvas attached to the yards and masts confirmed that the vessel had been under sail. The beach there was piled with debris several feet high. There were many cases of Diamond Oil kerosene, labelled R. W. Cameron and Company, New York. There were also many large planks of red pine, portions of a small white boat and a large, well-used oar. Other items found ashore included sewing machines (some consigned to ‘Long and Co.”) and notions, axe and scythe handles, hay forks, wooden pegs, rolls of wire (some branded “T.S” and Co, Melbourne”), kegs of nails branded “A.T. and Co.” from the factory of A. Field and Son, Taunton, Massachusetts, croquet balls and mallets, buggy fittings, rat traps, perfumery, cutlery and Douay Bibles, clocks, bicycles, chairs, a fly wheel, a cooking stove, timber, boxes, pianos, organs and a ladder. (Wooden clothes pegs drifted in for many years). There seemed to be no personal luggage or clothing. The Pharos encountered a long line, about one and a half miles, of floating wreckage about 10 miles off land, south east of Cape Otway, and in some places about 40 feet wide. It seemed that more than half of it was from Eric the Red. The ship’s crew rescued 3 cases that were for the Melbourne Exhibition and other items from amongst the debris. There were also chairs, doors, musical instruments, washing boards, nests of trunks and fly catchers floating in the sea. Most of the goods were saturated and smelt of kerosene. A section of the hull lies buried in the sand at Parker River Beach. An anchor with chain is embedded in the rocks east of Point Franklin and a second anchor, thought to be from Eric the Red, is on display at the Cape Otway light station. (There is a photograph of a life belt on the verandah of Rivernook Guest House in Princetown with the words “ERIC THE RED / BOSTON”. This is rather a mystery as the ship was registered in Bath, Maine, USA.) Parts of the ship are on display at Bimbi Park Caravan Park and at Apollo Bay Museum. Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village also has part of the helm (steering wheel), a carved wooden sword (said to be the only remaining portion of the ship’s figurehead; further research is currently being carried out), a door, a metal rod, several samples of wood and a medal for bravery, awarded to Nelson Johnson, a crew member of the S.S. Dawn by the U.S. President, for the rescue of the crew. Much of the wreckage was recovered by the local residents before police and other authorities arrived at the scene. Looters went to great effort to salvage goods, being lowered down the high cliff faces to areas with little or no beach to collect items from the wreckage, their mates above watching out for dangerous waves. A Tasmanian newspaper reports on a court case in Stawell, Victoria, noting a man who was caught 2 months later selling tobacco from the wreckage of Eric the Red. Some of the silverware is still treasured by descendants of Mr Mackenzie who was given these items by officials for his help in securing the cargo. The gifts included silver coffee and tea pots, half a dozen silver serviette rings and two sewing machines. A Mr G.W. Black has in his possession a medal and a purse that were awarded to his father, another Dawn crew member who was part of the rescue team. The medal is inscribed and named “To John Black ….” (from “Shipwrecks” by Margaret E. Mackenzie, 3rd edition, published 1964). The wreck and cargo were sold to a Melbourne man who salvaged a quantity of high quality tobacco and dental and surgical instruments. Timbers from the ship were salvaged and used in the construction of houses and sheds around Apollo Bay, including a guest house, Milford House (since burnt down in bushfires), which had furniture, fittings and timber on the dining room floor from the ship. A 39.7 foot long trading ketch, the Apollo, was also built from its timbers by Mr Burgess in 1883 and subsequently used in Tasmanian waters. It was the first attempt at ship building in Apollo bay. In 1881 a red light was installed about 300 feet above sea level at the base of the Cape Otway lighthouse to warn ships when they were too close to shore; It would not be visible unless a ship came within 3 miles from it. This has proved to be an effective warning. Nelson Johnson, recipient of the medal for bravery, married Elizabeth Howard in 1881 and they had 10 children. They lived in South Melbourne, Victoria. Nelson died in 1922 in Fitzroy Victoria, age 66. In 1895 the owners of the S.S. Dawn, the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co., wound up and sold out to the Belfast Company who took over the Dawn for one year before selling her to Howard Smith. She was condemned and sunk in Suva in 1928. The State Library of Victoria has a lithograph in its collection depicting the steamer Dawn and the shipwrecked men, titled. "Wreck of the ship Eric the Red, Cape Otway: rescue of the crew by the Dawn".The wood (timber) sample is listed on the Collections Australia Database, Heritage Victoria, number 239 00010 A “The Eric the Red is historically significant as one of Victoria's major 19th century shipwrecks. (Heritage Victoria Eric the Red; HV ID 239) The wreck led to the provision of an additional warning light placed below the Cape Otway lighthouse to alert mariners to the location of Otway Reef. The site is archaeologically significant for its remains of a large and varied cargo and ship's fittings being scattered over a wide area. The site is recreationally and aesthetically significant as it is one of the few sites along this coast where tourists can visit identifiable remains of a large wooden shipwreck, and for its location set against the background of Cape Otway, Bass Strait, and the Cape Otway lighthouse.“ (Victorian Heritage Database Registration Number S239, Official Number 8745 USA) Wood sample from the wreck of the ship Eric the Red. Triangular shaped, full of sea worm (Teredo worm) holes. The wood is dark in colour and is very light in weight.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, shipwreck-artefact, eric-the-red, zaccheus-allen, sewall, 1880, melbourne-exhibition, cape-otway, otway-reef, wood-sample, s.s.-dawn

This piece of timber from the ship Eric the Red has been eaten through by the marine animals called Teredo Worms, sometimes called sea worms or ‘termites of the sea’. The worms bore holes into wood that is immersed in sea water and bacteria inside the worms digest the wood. Shipbuilders tried to prevent this problem by using coatings of tar, wax, lead or pitch. In the 18th and 19th centuries the outside of their ships were sheathed in copper or a combination of copper and zinc (called Muntz metal) and would be re-metalled periodically to ensure the sheathing would remain effective. In more recent times the ships are protected with a toxic coating. The American ship Eric the Red was a wooden, three masted clipper ship. She had 1,580 tons register and was the largest full-rigged ship built at Bath, Maine, USA in 1871. She was built and registered by Arthur Sewall, later to become the partnership E. & A. Sewall, the 51st ship built by this company. The annually-published List of Merchant Vessels of the U.S. shows Bath was still the home port of Eric the Red in 1880. The vessel was named after the Viking discoverer, Eric ‘the Red-haired’ Thorvaldsson , who was the first European to reach the shores of North America (in 980AD). The ship Eric the Red at first traded in coal between America and Britain, and later traded in guano nitrates from South America. In 1879 she was re-metalled and was in first class condition. On 10th June 1880 (some records say 12th June) Eric the Red departed New York for Melbourne and then Sydney. She had been commissioned by American trade representatives to carry a special cargo of 500 exhibits (1400 tons) – about a quarter to a third of America’s total exhibits - for the U.S.A. pavilion at Melbourne’s first International Exhibition. The exhibits included furniture, ironmongery, wines, chemicals, dental and surgical instruments, paper, cages, bronze lamp trimmings, axles, stamped ware, astronomical and time globes, samples of corn and the choicest of leaf tobacco. Other general cargo included merchandise such as cases of kerosene and turpentine, brooms, Bristol's Sarsaparilla, Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, Wheeler’s thresher machine, axe handles and tools, cases of silver plate, toys, pianos and organs, carriages and Yankee notions. The Eric the Red left New York under the command of Captain Zaccheus Allen (or some records say Captain Jacques Allen) and 24 other crew including the owner’s son third mate Ned Sewall. There were also 2 saloon passengers on board. The ship had been sailing for an uneventful 85 days and the voyage was almost at its end. As Eric the Red approached Cape Otway there was a moderate north-west wind and hazy and overcast atmosphere. On 4th September 1880 at about 1:30am Captain Allen sighted the Cape Otway light and was keeping the ship 5-6 miles offshore to stay clear of the hazardous Otway Reef. However he had badly misjudged his position. The ship hit the Otway Reef about 2 miles out to sea, south west of the Cape Otway light station. Captain Allen ordered the wheel to be put ‘hard up’ thinking that she might float off the reef. The sea knocked the helmsman away from the wheel, broke the wheel ropes and carried away the rudder. The lifeboats were swamped, the mizzenmast fell, with all of its rigging, then the mainmast also fell and the ship broke in two. Some said that the passenger Vaughan, who was travelling for his health and not very strong, was washed overboard and never seen again. The ship started breaking up. The forward house came adrift with three of the crew on it as well as a longboat, which the men succeeded in launching and keeping afloat by continually bailing with their sea boots. The captain, the third mate (the owner’s son) and others clung to the mizzenmast in the sea. Then the owner’s son was washed away off the mast. Within 10 minutes the rest of the ship was in pieces, completely wrecked, with cargo and wreckage floating in the sea. The captain encouraged the second mate to swim with him to the deckhouse where there were other crew but the second mate wouldn’t go with him. Eventually the Captain made it to the deckhouse and the men pulled him up. At about 4:30am the group of men on the deckhouse saw the lights of a steamer and called for help. At the same time they noticed the second mate and the other man had drifted nearby, still on the spur, and pulled them both onto the wreck. The coastal steamer SS Dawn was returning to Warrnambool from Melbourne, its sailing time different to its usual schedule. She was built in 1876 and bought by the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co. in 1877. At the time of this journey she was commanded by Captain Jones, and was sailing between Melbourne and Portland via Warrnambool. The provedore of the Dawn, Benjamin Lear, heard cries of distress coming through the portholes of the saloon. He gave the alarm and the engines were stopped. Cries could be heard clearly, coming from the land. Captain Jones sent out crew in two boats, and fired off rockets and blue lights to illuminate the area. They picked up the three survivors who were in the long boat from Eric the Red. Two men were picked up out of the water, one being the owner’s son who was clinging to floating kerosene boxes. At daylight the Dawn then rescued the 18 men from the floating portion of the deckhouse, which had drifted about 4 miles from where they’d struck the reef. Shortly after the rescue the deckhouse drifted onto breakers and was thrown onto rocks at Point Franklin, about 2 miles east of Cape Otway. Captain Jones had signalled to Cape Otway lighthouse the number of the Eric the Red and later signalled that there was a wreck at Otway Reef but there was no response from the lighthouse. The captain and crew of the Dawn spent several more hours searching unsuccessfully for more survivors, even going back as far as Apollo Bay. On board the Dawn the exhausted men received care and attention to their needs and wants, including much needed clothing. Captain Allen was amongst the 23 battered and injured men who were rescued and later taken to Warrnambool for care. Warrnambool’s mayor and town clerk offered them all hospitality, the three badly injured men going to the hospital for care and others to the Olive Branch Hotel, then on to Melbourne. Captain Allen’s leg injury prevented him from going ashore so he and three other men travelled on the Dawn to Portland. They were met by the mayor who also treated them all with great kindness. Captain Allen took the train back to Melbourne then returned to America. Those saved were Captain Zaccheus Allen (or Jacques Allen), J. Darcy chief mate, James F. Lawrence second mate, Ned Sewall third mate and owner’s son, John French the cook, C. Nelson sail maker, Clarence W. New passenger, and the able seamen Dickenson, J. Black, Denis White, C. Herbert, C. Thompson, A. Brooks, D. Wilson, J. Ellis, Q. Thompson, C. Newman, W. Paul, J. Davis, M. Horenleng, J. Ogduff, T. W. Drew, R. Richardson. Four men had lost their lives; three of them were crew (Gus Dahlgreen ship’s carpenter, H. Ackman steward, who drowned in his cabin, and George Silver seaman) and one a passenger (J. B. Vaughan). The body of one of them had been found washed up at Cape Otway and was later buried in the lighthouse cemetery; another body was seen on an inaccessible ledge. Twelve months later the second mate James F. Lawrence, from Nova Scotia, passed away in the Warrnambool district; an obituary was displayed in the local paper. Neither the ship, nor its cargo, was insured. The ship was worth about £15,000 and the cargo was reportedly worth £40,000; only about £2,000 worth had been recovered. Cargo and wreckage washed up at Apollo Bay, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Western Port and according to some reports, even as far away as the beaches of New Zealand. The day after the wreck the government steam ship Pharos was sent from Queenscliff to clear the shipping lanes of debris that could be a danger to ships. The large midship deckhouse of the ship was found floating in a calm sea near Henty Reef. Items such as an American chair, a ladder and a nest of boxes were all on top of the deckhouse. As it was so large and could cause danger to passing ships, Captain Payne had the deckhouse towed towards the shore just beyond Apollo Bay. Between Apollo Bay and Blanket Bay the captain and crew of Pharos collected Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines, nests of boxes, bottles of Bristol’s sarsaparilla, pieces of common American chairs, axe handles, a Wheelers’ Patent thresher and a sailor’s trunk with the words “A. James” on the front. A ship’s flag-board bearing the words “Eric the Red” was found on the deckhouse; finally those on board the Pharos had the name of the wrecked vessel. During this operation Pharos came across the government steamer Victoria and also a steamer S.S. Otway, both of which were picking up flotsam and wreckage. A whole side of the hull and three large pieces of the other side of the hull, with some of the copper sheathing stripped off, had floated on to Point Franklin. Some of the vessels yards and portions of her masts were on shore. The pieces of canvas attached to the yards and masts confirmed that the vessel had been under sail. The beach there was piled with debris several feet high. There were many cases of Diamond Oil kerosene, labelled R. W. Cameron and Company, New York. There were also many large planks of red pine, portions of a small white boat and a large, well-used oar. Other items found ashore included sewing machines (some consigned to ‘Long and Co.”) and notions, axe and scythe handles, hay forks, wooden pegs, rolls of wire (some branded “T.S” and Co, Melbourne”), kegs of nails branded “A.T. and Co.” from the factory of A. Field and Son, Taunton, Massachusetts, croquet balls and mallets, buggy fittings, rat traps, perfumery, cutlery and Douay Bibles, clocks, bicycles, chairs, a fly wheel, a cooking stove, timber, boxes, pianos, organs and a ladder. (Wooden clothes pegs drifted in for many years). There seemed to be no personal luggage or clothing. The Pharos encountered a long line, about one and a half miles, of floating wreckage about 10 miles off land, south east of Cape Otway, and in some places about 40 feet wide. It seemed that more than half of it was from Eric the Red. The ship’s crew rescued 3 cases that were for the Melbourne Exhibition and other items from amongst the debris. There were also chairs, doors, musical instruments, washing boards, nests of trunks and fly catchers floating in the sea. Most of the goods were saturated and smelt of kerosene. A section of the hull lies buried in the sand at Parker River Beach. An anchor with chain is embedded in the rocks east of Point Franklin and a second anchor, thought to be from Eric the Red, is on display at the Cape Otway light station. (There is a photograph of a life belt on the verandah of Rivernook Guest House in Princetown with the words “ERIC THE RED / BOSTON”. This is rather a mystery as the ship was registered in Bath, Maine, USA.) Parts of the ship are on display at Bimbi Park Caravan Park and at Apollo Bay Museum. Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village also has part of the helm (steering wheel), a carved wooden sword (said to be the only remaining portion of the ship’s figurehead; further research is currently being carried out), a door, a metal rod, several samples of wood and a medal for bravery, awarded to Nelson Johnson, a crew member of the S.S. Dawn by the U.S. President, for the rescue of the crew. Much of the wreckage was recovered by the local residents before police and other authorities arrived at the scene. Looters went to great effort to salvage goods, being lowered down the high cliff faces to areas with little or no beach to collect items from the wreckage, their mates above watching out for dangerous waves. A Tasmanian newspaper reports on a court case in Stawell, Victoria, noting a man who was caught 2 months later selling tobacco from the wreckage of Eric the Red. Some of the silverware is still treasured by descendants of Mr Mackenzie who was given these items by officials for his help in securing the cargo. The gifts included silver coffee and tea pots, half a dozen silver serviette rings and two sewing machines. A Mr G.W. Black has in his possession a medal and a purse that were awarded to his father, another Dawn crew member who was part of the rescue team. The medal is inscribed and named “To John Black ….” (from “Shipwrecks” by Margaret E. Mackenzie, 3rd edition, published 1964). The wreck and cargo were sold to a Melbourne man who salvaged a quantity of high quality tobacco and dental and surgical instruments. Timbers from the ship were salvaged and used in the construction of houses and sheds around Apollo Bay, including a guest house, Milford House (since burnt down in bushfires), which had furniture, fittings and timber on the dining room floor from the ship. A 39.7 foot long trading ketch, the Apollo, was also built from its timbers by Mr Burgess in 1883 and subsequently used in Tasmanian waters. It was the first attempt at ship building in Apollo bay. In 1881 a red light was installed about 300 feet above sea level at the base of the Cape Otway lighthouse to warn ships when they were too close to shore; It would not be visible unless a ship came within 3 miles from it. This has proved to be an effective warning. Nelson Johnson, recipient of the medal for bravery, married Elizabeth Howard in 1881 and they had 10 children. They lived in South Melbourne, Victoria. Nelson died in 1922 in Fitzroy Victoria, age 66. In 1895 the owners of the S.S. Dawn, the Portland and Belfast Steam Navigation Co., wound up and sold out to the Belfast Company who took over the Dawn for one year before selling her to Howard Smith. She was condemned and sunk in Suva in 1928. The State Library of Victoria has a lithograph in its collection depicting the steamer Dawn and the shipwrecked men, titled. "Wreck of the ship Eric the Red, Cape Otway: rescue of the crew by the Dawn".The wood (timber) sample is listed on the Collections Australia Database, Heritage Victoria, number 239 00010 A “The Eric the Red is historically significant as one of Victoria's major 19th century shipwrecks. (Heritage Victoria Eric the Red; HV ID 239) The wreck led to the provision of an additional warning light placed below the Cape Otway lighthouse to alert mariners to the location of Otway Reef. The site is archaeologically significant for its remains of a large and varied cargo and ship's fittings being scattered over a wide area. The site is recreationally and aesthetically significant as it is one of the few sites along this coast where tourists can visit identifiable remains of a large wooden shipwreck, and for its location set against the background of Cape Otway, Bass Strait, and the Cape Otway lighthouse.“ (Victorian Heritage Database Registration Number S239, Official Number 8745 USA) Wood sample from the wreck of the ship Eric the Red. Oblong shaped, full of sea worm (Teredo worm) holes. The wood is dark in colour and is very light in weight. flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, shipwreck-artefact, eric-the-red, zaccheus-allen, sewall, 1880, melbourne-exhibition, cape-otway, otway-reef, wood-sample, s.s.-dawn

The Edison Fireside Phonograph Combination Type A model phonograph was an open horn model. This machine was produced around 1909, just after the introduction of 4-minute record cylinders in 1908.; the selection lever on the front was either 4 or 2-minute choice. This Fireside model has a fluted octagonal horn that attaches to the reproducer on the machine and is suspended by on ring by a horn crane attachment. The phonograph machine is powered purely by mechanical means, winding the crank handle on the side of the machine to start the belt-driven, spring-loaded motor inside. The sound comes from a pre-recorded, vertical cut record cylinder, which slides over the Mandle, a smooth rotating drum. The reproducer, an all-in-one needle, amplifier and speaker, is lowered onto the cylinder, the needle picks up the sound and plays it on the speaker and the attached horn amplifies the sound. The phonograph machine was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in the late 19th century. Edison adopted the idea from the technology of the telegraph machine. He patented the phonograph in early 1878. It was able to record sound and play it back. This amazing invention opened up a whole new world of entertainment, where wax cylinders of pre-recorded sound could be purchased with a wide variety of music and played over and over. The first wax cylinders were white and used a combination of bees' wax and animal fax or tallow. By 1892 Edison was using 'brown wax' cylinders that ranged from cream through to dark brown. The Edison Phonograph Company was formed in 1887 to produce these machines. He sold the company in 1855 to the North American Phonograph Company but bought that company in 1890. He then started the Edison Spring Motor factory in 1895, and the National Phonograph Company in 1896. In 1910 the company became Thomas A. Edison Inc. In 1898 Edison produced the Edison Standard Phonograph, the first phonograph to carry his own trade mark. He began mass producing duplicate copies of his wax cylinders in 1901 using moulds instead of engraving the cylinders. The wax was black and harder than the brown wax. The ends of the cylinders were bevelled so that the title's label could be added. The last phonograph machine to use an external open horn was produced in 1912 due to the much more robust round records being invented. In 1913 Edison started producing the Edison Disc Phonograph. The company stopped trading in 1929.This Edison Fireside Phonograph model is significant for being one of the last models to have an external horn. It is also significant for its connection with the invention of the phonograph, which made music and sound available for domestic enjoyment. It was used for entertainment and education, even teaching languages. It signalled a new era of music that could be reproduced and played anywhere. It is also significant for its short time span of popularity, just a few decades, due to the growing use of records, which gave a much higher quality sound and were more robust.Phonograph; Edison Fireside Phonograph, Combination Type, Model A. It is in a wooden case with a domed lid, metal catches on each side and a folding wooden handle. It has a metal drum and a reproducer mechanism. The metal and wood crank handle starts the machine’s motor. A sliding lever at the front selects the speed for four- or two-minute cylinders. The inscribed plate has the maker, serial number, patents and other information. The reproducer also has an inscription. It has a curved metal open horn attachment. Made in Orange, New Jersey in c.1909. NOTE: the fluted octagonal horn is catalogued separately.Case front, in script, Edison’s early ‘banner’ decal “Edison” On the front of the machine “Thomas A Edison TRADE MARK” On the maker’s plate; "Edison Fireside Phonograph Combination Type" Serial number “14718” Around sound outlet; “C 4076” “REPRODUCER LICENCED FOR USE ONLY ON EDISON PHOTOGRAPHS SOLD BYT.A. EDISON INC.” At the front edge “4 MINUTES 2flagstaff hill, maritime museum, maritime village, warrnambool, great ocean road, shipwreck coast, gramophone, phonograph, music player, entertainment, audio equipment, edison, thomas a edison, horn, phonograph horn, amplifier, audio, sound recording, sound playback, phonograph machine, phonograph cylinder, external horn, edison phonograph company, wax cylinders, sound reproduction, edison spring motor factory, national phonograph company, thomas a. edison inc, crank-operated motor, open horn phonograph, 4 speed, 2 speed

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/Ceramics have evolved over thousands of years.White earthenware dinner plate. Crazing evident all over.Backstamped ‘Made in England S LTD’flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, ceramics, tableware

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/Ceramics have evolved over thousands of years.A white earthenware side plate with a gadroon edge. Has water marks and chips on front.‘Johnson Bros England Reg No 15587’flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, johnson bros, ceramics, tableware

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/Ceramics have evolved over thousands of years.Earthenware dessert plate, cream colour. Made by Alfred Meakin, England. Backstamped ‘Alfred Meakin England’. flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, alfred meakin, ceramics, earthenware, kitchenware

The design of this and other similar treadle powered dental engine (or dentist drill) was in common use by dentists from the 1870’s into the 1920's. When electricity became accessible to most communities the electrically powered dental engines began to take over from the treadle power. Over the ages teeth were extracted using picks and scissors and other gouging instruments. Bow drills, hand drills and even a "bur thimble" drill were later used to prepare cavities for filling. Some drills were made bendable by attaching flexible shanks between the metal bur and the handle, giving access to the teeth at the back of the mouth. Other mechanical devices were introduced along the way, such as clockwork drills, but they were hard to handle and inefficient. Over the centuries “dentistry has been performed by priests, monks and other healers. This was followed by barbers; the barber’s chair may well have been the precursor to the dental chair. “(SA Medical Heritage Society Inc.) In 1871 James Morrison patented the first commercially manufactured 'foot treadle dental engine', the first practica dental engine although others had been introduced as early as 1790 (by John Greenwood). Handmade steel burs or drills were introduced for dental handpieces, taking advantage of the significant increase in the speed of the drill. In 1891 the first machine-made steel burs were in use. The treadle drill reduced the time to prepare a cavity from hours to less than ten minutes. In 1876 the Samuel S. White Catalogue of Dentist Instruments listed a 12 ½ inch wheel diameter dental engine, with 14 bright steel parts, for sale at US $55 In today’s market, this is the equivalent to US $1200 approx. The specifications of that dental engine are very similar to the this one in our Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village’s collection. It is interesting to note that workings of a similar treadle dentist drill were used and modified to power a treadle spinning wheel of one of the volunteer spinners at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village. The foot treadle dental engine was a milestone in dental history. “Historic importance of treadle powered machines; they made use of human power in an optimal way” (Lowtech Magazine “Short history of early pedal powered machines”) The invention of a machine to speed up the process of excavation of a tooth lead to the invention of new burs and drills for the handpieces, improving speed and the surgical process of dentistry. They were the fore-runner of today’s electrically powered dental engines. This treadle-powered dentist drill, or dentist engine, is made of iron and steel and provides power for a mechanical dental hand-piece that would be fitted with a dental tool. The drill has a three footed cast iron base, one foot being longer than the other two. A vertical C shaped frame is joined into the centre of the base, holding an axle that has a driving-wheel (or flywheel) and connecting to a crank. A slender, shoulder height post, made from telescoping pipes, joins into the top of this frame and is height adjusted by a hand tightened screw with a round knob. On the post just above the frame is a short metal, horizontal bar (to hold the hand-piece when it is not in use). A narrow tubular arm is attached to the top of the stand at a right angle and can move up and down. At the end of the arm is a firmly fixed, flexible rubber hose protected for a short distance by a sheath of thin metal. At the end of the hose there is a fitting where the drill’s hand-piece would be attached; a small, silver coloured alligator clip is also at the end. A treadle, or foot pedal, is hinged to the heel to the long foot of the base, and joined at the toe to the crank that turns the driving-wheel. There is a spring under the toe of the treadle. The metal driving-wheel has a wide rim. Touching the inside of the rim are four tubular rings that bulge towards the outside of the driving-wheel, away from the pole, and all meet at the hub of the axle. The axle is bulbous between the inside of the driving-wheel and the frame then passes through the frame and is attached on the other side. The driving-wheel has a groove around which a belt would sit. The belt would also fit around a pulley on the arm, at the top of the post. The pulley is joined to a rod inside the arm and this spins the drill's hand-piece and dental tool holder. The two shorter feet of the base are made from a long metal bar that has been curved outwards, and its centre is bolted to the base of the pole. Under the ends of the curved legs of the base are wedge shaped feet. The driving-wheel is decorated in light coloured paint on both sides, each side having three sets of floral decals evenly spaced around them, and each about a sixth of the wheel's circumference. Similar decoration is along the sides of the frame. The foot pedal has decorative cutout patterns in the centre of the foot and at the toe. On the long foot of the stand is some lettering with a fine, light coloured border around it. The lettering is hard to read, being a dark colour and flaking off. There are also remnants of fine, light coloured flourishes. The foot pedal has lettering of the maker’s trade mark cast into the metal at the ball of the foot. Lettering on the base is peeling and difficult to read. The foot pedal has a trade mark cast into it that looks like a combination of ‘C’ , ‘S’ , ‘A’, ‘R’. flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked coast, flagstaff hill maritime museum, maritime museum, shipwreck coast, flagstaff hill maritime village, great ocean road, dentist, teeth, dental drill, dental engine, treadle drill, foot powered drill, treadle engine, orthodontics, dental surgery, james morrison

The design of this and other similar treadle powered dental engine (or dentist drill) was in common use by dentists from the 1870’s into the 1920's. When electricity became accessible to most communities the electrically powered dental engines began to take over from the treadle power. Over the ages teeth were extracted using picks and scissors and other gouging instruments. Bow drills, hand drills and even a "bur thimble" drill were later used to prepare cavities for filling. Some drills were made bendable by attaching flexible shanks between the metal bur and the handle, giving access to the teeth at the back of the mouth. Other mechanical devices were introduced along the way, such as clockwork drills, but they were hard to handle and inefficient. Over the centuries “dentistry has been performed by priests, monks and other healers. This was followed by barbers; the barber’s chair may well have been the precursor to the dental chair. “(SA Medical Heritage Society Inc.) In 1871 James Morrison patented the first commercially manufactured 'foot treadle dental engine', the first practica dental engine although others had been introduced as early as 1790 (by John Greenwood). Handmade steel burs or drills were introduced for dental handpieces, taking advantage of the significant increase in the speed of the drill. In 1891 the first machine-made steel burs were in use. The treadle drill reduced the time to prepare a cavity from hours to less than ten minutes. In 1876 the Samuel S. White Catalogue of Dentist Instruments listed a 12 ½ inch wheel diameter dental engine, with 14 bright steel parts, for sale at US $55 In today’s market, this is the equivalent to US $1200 approx. The specifications of that dental engine are very similar to the this one in our Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village’s collection. It is interesting to note that workings of a similar treadle dentist drill were used and modified to power a treadle spinning wheel of one of the volunteer spinners at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village. The foot treadle dental engine was a milestone in dental history. “Historic importance of treadle powered machines; they made use of human power in an optimal way” (Lowtech Magazine “Short history of early pedal powered machines”) The invention of a machine to speed up the process of excavation of a tooth lead to the invention of new burs and drills for the handpieces, improving speed and the surgical process of dentistry. They were the fore-runner of today’s electrically powered dental engines. This treadle-powered dentist drill, or dentist engine, is made of iron and steel and provides power for a mechanical dental handpiece that would be fitted with a dental tool. On the foot is painted lettering naming it "The Brentfield" and there is a fine line of light coloured paint creating a border around the name. The paint under the lettering is peeling off. The drill has a Y-shaped, three footed cast iron base, one foot being longer than the other two. A vertical frame is joined into the centre of the base, holding an axle that has a driving-wheel (or flywheel) and connecting to a crank. A slender, shoulder height post, made from adjustable telescoping pipes, joins into the top of this frame. On the post just above the frame is a short metal, horizontal bar (to hold the hand-piece when it is not in use). A narrow tubular arm is attached to the top of the stand at a right angle and can move up, down and around. There is a pulley each side of the joint of the arm and a short way along the arm is fitted a short metal pipe. A little further along the arm a frayed-ended cord hangs down from a hole. At the end of the arm is another pulley and a joint from which hangs a long, thin metal pipe with two pulleys and a fitting on the end. A treadle, or foot pedal, is joined to the long foot of the base, and joined at the toe to the crank that turns the driving-wheel. The metal driving-wheel has a wide rim. Touching the inside of the rim are four tubular rings that bulge towards the outside of the driving-wheel, away from the pole, and all meet at the hub of the axle. The axle fits between the inside of the driving-wheel and the frame then passes through the frame and is attached on the other side. The driving-wheel has a groove around which a belt would sit. The belt would also fit around a pulley on the arm, at the top of the post. The pulley is joined to a rod inside the arm and this spins the drill's hand-piece and dental tool holder. The foot pedal has a cross-hatch pattern on the heel and the ball of the foot has tread lines across it. The end of the toe and the instep areas have cut-out pattern in them. "The ____/ Brentfield / __ DE IN L___" (Made in London) painted on the long foot of the base. Marked on the drill connection is “Richter De Trey, Germany”flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked coast, flagstaff hill maritime museum, maritime museum, shipwreck coast, flagstaff hill maritime village, great ocean road, dentist, teeth, dental drill, dental engine, treadle drill, foot powered drill, treadle engine, orthodontics, dental surgery, james morrison, the brentfield, richter de trey, german dental fitting, london dental drill

The Process of Making Pottery Decorating, Firing, Glazing, Making, Technical There is a rhythm and flow to clay. It can’t be done all at once! Even the making process! It can take weeks to get everything done, especially if you can only work on your pottery once a week! Even though we have three hour classes, it’s often just not enough time! Here is an overview of some of the processes so you have a bit more grasp on some of the technical stuff! Step One – Design There are SO many ideas out there for making stuff in clay! From delicate porcelain jewellery, through to heavy sculptural work and everything in between. Deciding your direction is sometimes not that easy – when you first start, try everything, you will naturally gravitate to the style that you enjoy! The options and variations are endless and can get a wee bit overwhelming too! Check in with me before you start to ensure your ideas will work, what order you might do things, how you could achieve the look you are seeking and any other technical data required! Step Two – Making Clay is thixotropic. This means that as you work with it, the clay first gets sloppier and wetter, before is begins to dry in the atmosphere. For most things, you simply can’t do all parts of the project at once. An example of work order might look like: Get last weeks work out from the shelves Prepare clay for today’s work – roll your clay, prepare balls for throwing, make the first stage of a pinch pot) Clean up last week’s work and put it on the shelf for bisque firing Check that you have any glazing to do – and do enough of it that you will have time to finish your main project Do the next step of your next project – there might be a further step that can’t be complete immediately, in that case, wrap your work well and put onto the shelves. Letting your work rest for a while can really help keep your work clean and professional looking. Many things require bagging under plastic to keep it ready for work the next week – put your name on the outside of the bag so you can find your work easily. We have stickers and markers. Consider how you want to decorate your work – coloured slip can be applied at a fairly wet stage (remembering that it will make your work even wetter!). Trying to apply slip to dry clay won’t work! If you want to do sgraffito – you will need to keep the work leather hard (a state of dryness where you can still work the clay with a little effort and a little water and care). Step Three – Drying Most of the time your work can go into the rack uncovered to let it dry out for the following week. If you want to continue forming or shaping you will need to double bag your work – put your work on a suitable sized bat and put the bat in a bag so the base of the bag is under the bat, then put another bag over the top of the work and tuck the top of the bag under the bat. If you want to trim (or turn) your thrown work the following week, it should also be double bagged. If your work is large, delicate, or of uneven thicknesses, you should lightly cover your work for drying. When considering the drying process, bare in mind the weather, humidity and wind! The hotter and dryer, the faster things dry and work can dry unevenly in the shelves – this can lead to cracking – another time to lightly cover your work for drying. Step Four – Trimming and Cleaning Up Your work is dry! It is called greenware now and it is at it’s most fragile! Handle everything with two hands. I often refer to soft hands – keep everything gentle and with your fingers spread as much as possible. Try to not pick up things like plates too much, and always with both hands! Before your work can be bisque fired it should be “cleaned up”. You work won’t go into the kiln if it has sharp edges – when glazed, sharp edges turn into razor blades! Use a piece of fly wire to rub the work all over – this will scratch a little so be light handed. Use a knife or metal kidney to scrape any areas that require a bit more dynamic treatment than the fly wire offers! Finally, a very light wipe over with a slightly damp sponge can help soften and soothe all of your edges and dags! Trimming thrown work: If you are planning to trim (or turn) your thrown work (and you should be), make sure you bag it well – your work should be leather hard to almost dry for easiest trimming. Use this step to finish the work completely – use a metal kidney to polish the surface, or a slightly damp sponge to give a freshly thrown look. Wipe the sponge around the rim after trimming, and check the inside of the pot for dags! Trimming slip cast work: Usually I will trim the rims of your work on the wheel the following day to make that stage easier, however you will still need to check your work for lumps and bumps. Last but not least – check that your name is still clearly on the bottom of your work. Step Five – Bisque Firing When the work is completely dry it can go into the bisque kiln. The bisque kiln is fired to 1000°C. This process burns off the water in the clay as well as some of the chemically bound water. The structure of the clay is not altered that much at this temperature. Inside the bisque kiln, the work is stacked a little, small bowl inside a larger bowl and onto a heavy plate. Smaller items like decorations or drink coasters might get stacked several high. Consideration is paid to the weight of the stack and shape of the work. A bisque kiln can fire about one and a half times the amount of work that the glaze kiln can fire. The firing takes about 10 hours to complete the cycle and about two days to cool down. Once it has been emptied the work is placed in the glaze room ready for you to decorate! Step Six – Glazing Decorating your work with colour can be a lot of fun – and time consuming! There are three main options for surface treatment at this stage: Oxide Washes Underglazes Glazes Washes and underglazes do not “glaze” the work – It will still need a layer of glaze to fully seal the clay (washes don’t need glaze on surfaces not designed for food or liquid as they can gloss up a little on their own). Underglazes are stable colourants that turn out pretty much how they look in the jar. They can be mixed with each other to form other colours and can be used like water colours to paint onto your work. Mostly they should have a clear glaze on top to seal them. Oxides are a different species – the pink oxide (cobalt) wash turns out bright blue for instance. They don’t always need a glaze on top, and some glazes can change the colour of the wash! The glazes need no other “glaze” on top! Be careful of unknown glaze interactions – you can put any combination of glaze in a bowl or on a plate, but only a single glaze on the outside of any vertical surface! Glazes are a chemical reaction under heat. We don’t know the exact chemicals in the Mayco glazes we use. I can guess by the way they interact with each other, however, on the whole, you need to test every idea you have, and not run the test on a vertical surface! Simply put, glaze is a layer of glass like substance that bonds with the clay underneath. Clay is made of silica, alumina and water. Glaze is made of mostly silica. Silica has a melting point of 1700°C and we fire to 1240°C. The silica requires a “flux” to help it melt at the lower temperature. Fluxes can be all sorts of chemicals – a common one is calcium – calcium has a melting point of 2500°C, however, together they both melt at a much lower temperature! Colourants are metal oxides like cobalt (blue), chrome (green through black), copper (green, blue, even red!), manganese (black, purple and pink) iron (red brown), etc. Different chemicals in the glaze can have dramatic effects. for example, barium carbonate (which we don’t use) turns manganese bright pink! Other elements can turn manganese dioxide brown, blue, purple and reddish brown. Manganese dioxide is a flux in and of itself as well. So, glazes that get their black and purple colours, often interact with other glazes and RUN! Our mirror black is a good example – it mixes really well with many glazes because it fluxes them – causes them to melt faster. It will also bring out many beautiful colours in the glazes because it’s black colouring most definitely comes from manganese dioxide! Glaze chemistry is a whole subject on it’s own! We use commercial Mayco glazes on purpose – for their huge range of colour possibilities, stability, cool interactions, artistic freedom with the ability to easily brush the glazes on and ease of use. We currently have almost 50 glazes on hand! A major project is to test the interactions of all glazes with each other. That is 2,500 test tiles!!!! I’m going to make the wall behind the wheels the feature wall of pretty colours! Step Seven – Glaze (Gloss or sometimes called “Glost”) Firing Most of the time this is the final stage of making your creation (but not always!) The glaze kiln goes to 1240°C. This is called cone 6, or midrange. It is the low end of stoneware temperatures. Stoneware clays and glazes are typically fired at cone 8 – 10, that is 1260 – 1290°C. The energy requirement to go from 1240°C to 1280°C is almost a 30% more! Our clay is formulated to vitrify (mature, turn “glass-like”) at 1240°, as are our glazes. A glaze kiln take around 12 hours to reach temperature and two to three days to cool down. Sometimes a third firing process is required – this is for decoration that is added to work after the glaze firing. For example – adding precious metals and lustres. this firing temperature is usually around 600 – 800°C depending upon the techniques being used. There are many students interested in gold and silver trims – we will be doing this third type of firing soon! After firing your work will be in the student finished work shelves. Remember to pay for it before you head out the door! There is a small extra charge for using porcelain clay (it’s more than twice the price of regular clay), and for any third firing process! Once your work has been fired it can not turn back into clay for millennia – so don’t fire it if you don’t like it! Put it in the bucket for recycling. https://firebirdstudios.com.au/the-process-of-making-pottery/The form of the jug has been in use for many centuries.Stoneware jug. Two tone brown glaze with pierced lip behind spout. Spout chipped.None.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, jug, ceramic jug

This type of pick used in mining and tunnelling.Metal, slightly curved sharp end with hammerable top end. Open hole for handle which would have been wood.mining, pick, tools, trades

Celluloids are a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, with added dyes and other agents. Generally considered the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1856 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is easily moulded and shaped, and it was first widely used as an ivory replacement. The main use was in movie and photography film industries, which used only celluloid films prior to acetate films that were introduced in the 1950s. Celluloid is highly flammable, difficult and expensive to produce and no longer widely used, although its most common uses today are in table tennis balls, musical instruments and guitar picks. Celluloid was useful for creating cheaper jewellery, jewellery boxes, hair accessories and many items that would earlier have been manufactured from ivory, horn or other expensive animal products. It was often referred to as "Ivorine" or "French Ivory". It was also used for dressing table sets, dolls, picture frames, charms, hat pins, buttons, buckles, stringed instrument parts, accordions, fountain pens, cutlery handles and kitchen items. The main disadvantage the material had was that it was flammable.. It was soon overtaken by Bakelite.A miniature, oval, Ivorine hand mirror with floral engraving on back. An accoutrement for use in a lady's Evening bag c19thCFloral design engraving on back of mirrormoorabbin, brighton, early settlers, pioneers, cheltenham, craft work, mirors, ivorine, evening bags, celluloids, bakelite, plastics,

Celluloids are a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, with added dyes and other agents. Generally considered the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1856 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is easily moulded and shaped, and it was first widely used as an ivory replacement. The main use was in movie and photography film industries, which used only celluloid films prior to acetate films that were introduced in the 1950s. Celluloid is highly flammable, difficult and expensive to produce and no longer widely used, although its most common uses today are in table tennis balls, musical instruments and guitar picks. Celluloid was useful for creating cheaper jewellery, jewellery boxes, hair accessories and many items that would earlier have been manufactured from ivory, horn or other expensive animal products. It was often referred to as "Ivorine" or "French Ivory". It was also used for dressing table sets, dolls, picture frames, charms, hat pins, buttons, buckles, stringed instrument parts, accordions, fountain pens, cutlery handles and kitchen items. The main disadvantage the material had was that it was flammable. Items made in celluloid are collectible today and increasingly rare in good condition. It was soon overtaken by Bakelite and Catalin.. A miniature, square, Ivorine hand mirror with bird engraved on back. An accoutrement for use in a lady's Evening bag c 19thCbird engraved on back of mirrormoorabbin, cheltenham, brighton, market gardeners, pioneers early settlers, mirrors, ivorine, celluloids, bakelite, plastics,

Short top end of head. Commercially made/ Well worn. Handle repaired1) automotive wire 2) electrical tape repair. Painted red, end split. miner, mining, pick, churchill island, tools, farm

8423.1 - A pickaxe- wooden handle with one end thickened and flared and to which is attached the double-pointed, narrow metal head.

8422.1 - Pickaxe- wooden handle, thickened and flared at one end to which is attached a narrow double-pointed pick head

These knives were used during beet harvesting. The beets were mechanically lifted, with workers following to pick up each beet, removing the tops with these knives.A beet knife with a long blade which has a pointed end. The handle is short and brown with four rivets in it that have one black dot in the centre of each."Joseph ---- & Sons, Endure, Sheffield" on the knife bladesugarbeet

Standard issue multi-use tool as used by Australian servicemen during the conflict in Vietnam (1962-1972).Foldable metal shovel with pick, has a release winder at the top of a long wooden handle, which is painted white.shovel, spade, pick, entrenching tool, vietnam

HAND MADE MINERS PICK METAL HEAD - LONG HAMMER HEAD ON ONE END AND PICK HEAD ON THE OTHER END WOODEN HANDLE, THE HANDLE IS SPLIT, HELD TOGETHER WITH LEATHER AND WIRE LEATHER STRIP WOUND AROUND AND NAILED ONpick, miners pick, miners tool, gold

Wool picking machine designed to separate locks of wool before it is carded and spun. The picker opens the wool’s locks which makes it easier to send the fleece through a carding machine. It does this by teasing the fibres (which can also be done by hand just by pulling the lock structure apart), but a picker does this in bulk and much quicker than what can be done by hand. It is possible to spin fibres directly after the picking stage; however, it is usually more desirable to card and blend them with other fibres. Typically, at a textile mill, a picking machine can separate enough lengths of fibre for a full day’s work after just a single hour. It will also help to remove any vegetation matter or other any unwanted elements that may be present in the wool. The quality of the casting on this machine suggest that it was made locally, either in Australia or New Zealand. Mike Leggett, the donor of the machine, acquired it from New Zealand where the seller said it had been used by his father to pick wool to make hand stuffed horse saddles. Mike attempted to used it a couple of times to pick alpaca hair, but the speed of the attached motor caused damage to the fibres. The motor is thought to be an added attachment, sometime around the 1960s judging by its age, while the machine itself is thought to be dated around the 1920s. The machine works by inserting wool through the rollers. Initially there was a conveyor belt feeder system which was powered by the handle on the side. This conveyor belt has been removed however, most likely due to age and deterioration. Wool is now fed through the initial teeth and is met by a spiked rotating drum which works to separate the fibres. The separated fibres would then complete a loop of the drum before being dispatched somewhere below, around where the motor presently sits, at a rapid rate of speed. Typically this wool will be collected in a closet or large catchment area, as can be seen from the 8:47 minute marker in the linked video (link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMjx-t3tH3A). It is not apparent how the wool is collected with this machine. Red and green machine with four green legs currently attached to a wooden pallet with wheels for easy movement. The green legs lead up to a red central circular barrel from which many attachments are present. Also present on the wooden pallet is a small black motor which is attached by a rubber belt to the central drum inside the red barrel. The belt spins the wooden drum via a dark red circular plate attached to the side of the drum. On the other side of the red barrel, a green handle extends for turning the picker’s conveyor belt feeder system. Two green walls extend forward from the central red barrel, guarding either side of where the conveyor belt would have been. At the start of these walls is a wooden cylinder, which the conveyor belt would have wrapped around, followed by two interlocking gears which rotate and accept the fed wool. The red roof extends over the central cylinder from here, securing the wool inside and protecting hands from the heavily spiked internal wooden cylinder which rotates and separates (picks) the wool. Extending over the top of this red roof is a green handle which reaches to the back of the machine (not pictured). Here it accepts a weight to ensure pressure is always present for the initial feeder interlocked gear teeth. There are two large gear cogs on the rubber belt side of the machine and 3 small gear cogs on the handle side of the machine, all coloured green. A green handle is also present at the rear of the machine, below the location from which the weight is hanging. A power cable extends from the motor and there are two adjustable metal rods on the top of the machine, the purpose of these rods is presently unknown. Black texter. On top of drum. Wording: HG3707 Wording. Imprint: BRACEWIND BLYN On motor. Wording AEIwool picking, textile manufacturing, wool processing