For a long time now, I have been meaning to write this post. At a show or online will get asked how much an items is. I will also get (not every time but often enough) this response “That’s too rich for my blood!” or “I couldn’t spend that much!” or something to that effect.Now that being said, most people understand my pricing and are perfectly wonderful. I figured explaining how long one set of legs takes to make would help the few that go into sticker shock.

Lets get started!

I will be explaining the process to make one set of legs. It doesn’t matter the size actually. It is all the same.

Step one: Pour and mold the legs. This takes up about 40 minutes. That includes pouring the porcelain slip into the mold. waiting for a few minutes, then pouring the remainder out. Then letting it set up and un-molding when its ready. This set is so dependent on weather outside and temperature inside. If the air is too humid, forget about doing any of this.

Step Two: After you un-mold the pieces, do a quick seam cleaning. After they are dry, pop them into the kiln for two hours.

Step Three: This is the stage most of the cleaning of the pieces happen. Its called wet cleaning. It takes about 15 minutes for this step. It can take longer depending on the size of the piece. But for the legs of this post, 15 minutes and we are done.

Step Four: Second time into the kiln. This is the bisque fire. They turn into porcelain in this firing basically. The parts will stay in the kiln for 4 hours at this point. But I normally leave the parts in there overnight to cool after its done.

Step Five: If the legs are getting glazed, add an extra 30 minutes to apply the coats of glaze. If not a quick and final cleaning/sanding is done to the legs. This takes about 15 minutes or so.

Step Six:If legs were glazed then they go back into the kiln for 3 more hours. If not the next step is painting.

Step Seven: It normally takes me 4 paint firings to paint legs and each firing takes about 2 hours.
The final count: 16 hours (give or take an hour) to make one set of legs. Let me repeat that ………ONE SET OF LEGS TAKES ABOUT 16 hours!!!!!

Normally I fire and paint multiple pieces at once but each pieces still takes the a large portion of time and energy to make.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings everyone!

Please remember to check out my shop as well:https://www.etsy.com/shop/ReproDolls?ref=l2-shopheader-name