What materials can survive the Temple Burn?

[aber65]

Hi all,

I am thinking about doing a little art project this year involving the temple burn. I'd like to put something into the temple that during the burn will either melt or fuse or morph into a different material or form. This will be in conjunction with the burning of a box with mementos of the pooch that we just lost. We would like to take the morphed object and use in in some sort of jewelry.

Has anybody out there done this successfully before? Have they been able to retrieve their item after the burn was over and cooled off enough to allow retrieval? What kind of materials did you use? Metal? Sand? (is the burn hot enough to melt it and transform it into glass?) Glass? Anything else?

Thanks everyone.

[Bob]

Clay, glass, brass, aluminum, whatever. Try it at home in a bonfire or barbecue. Find a book on raku ceramics or craft metal casting.

[phil]

> Has anybody out there done this successfully before?

I've been given several souvenirs that were made from melted stuff from Burns, but it was found stuff.

> Have they been able to retrieve their item after the burn was
> over and cooled off enough to allow retrieval?

That would be the major problem. See above - lots of scavengers are out there scouring the ashes for attractive melted blobs to work into art. Finding your specific blob would be a problem even if no one else were out there, but try it and take your chances.

[aber65]

Good idea on the bonfire, I've got a lot of spring cleaning to do. I've also seen what you are talking about in putting dried leaves in with a ceramic firing and the effect that you get with it in the form of a crackling iridescent effect.

And thanks for the insite phil.

My first idea was to take a wooden box and install a metal frame onto the inside and hang or attach some material with some of the pooches ashes and see what comes out. My hope would be that the metal frame would stand up to the heat enough to stick out of the ashes and be found. I haven't been to the ash pile from the temple before so I would imagine that a metal detector might be helpful, No?

[BitterDan]

NO SOUP FOR YOU! COME BACK ONE YEAR!

[aber65]

Mmmmm,,,soup.

Maybe I can use a soup can for firing a little pendant with me pooches ashes.

Thanks Bitter.

[Bob]

FWIW, most people put stuff in fires to get rid of it.

[aber65]

Thank you, Bob. :shock:

The idea here is to see if my wife and I might be able to put into the fire and then get back from the fire in a different form. I think that if one can change the form and transform maybe some of the meaning behind certain objects, these objects could then take on deeper, different and more useful meaning.

I wonder what kind of Raku effects I can get out of some of my pooches hair for instance.

Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated.

[gyre]

Firebrick can be used to control heat, insulating or conductive.
Some metals with definitely tolerate the heat.
Putting something on the ground should reduce the heat some.

[theCryptofishist]

My suggestion. Put in what you want. Whatever it is you pull out is what you were meant to pull out. A sort of transformation. Not the same molecules, but the same fire.

[robotland]

I do sloppy aluminum bonfire casting with my studio scrap, melting the aluminum in an old cast-iron pot right in the middle of the hottest part of a medium-sized bonfire. My guess would be that given the scale and intensity of the temple fires you'd need a firebrick or ceramic enclosure, almost like a miniature kiln in the midst of the conflagration. Left to its own devices I'm sure that anything could melt in a big fire like that, including steel, but it's maintaining the necessary heat to do so that's the tricky part even in such a big stoker. Fire's a weird thing- I helped my brother-in-law salvage from the remains of his burned-down home a few years ago, and we kept finding melted glass and completely fire-softened steel tools inches away from completely intact Kodak slides.

[theCryptofishist]

Dang. Sounds like a great opportunity for assemblage art/alter there robotland.

Glass is pretty odd. After the Oakland Firestorm I found bottles that were perfectly intact, but crumbled under pressure. An early lesson in thermal shock.

[mdmf007]

I always find pools of aluminum, brass, copper, and other wierd amalgamations at structure and vehicle fires. some are pretty interesting. Sounds like a neat project - i hope it works, and ou can find it again.