How To Wet-clean Greenware

Here's How:

1. Soft fire your greenware in your kiln to cone 018. Let the greenware cool.
2. Submerge the greenware into warm water.  Let the greenware soak for at least 5 minutes.
3. Keep the head and all tools wet during cleaning.
4. If your eyes are not already cut do so now, using a wet feather knife and your usual method.
5. Bevel eyes with a wet beveling tool and size them.
6. Clean all seams with a Wet Scrubber (Seeleys product) or other seam cleaner. Be careful not to remove too much detail or flatten parts of the doll when cleaning the seams.
7. Periodically dip your doll part in water to remove paste build up.
8. Use the wet scrubber to remove any other imperfections.  Some people will lightly sand the entire greenware with a fine wet scrubber, vinyl gloves or other method at this time.
9. Examine doll parts with magnification after they are partially dry and they no longer are shiny-wet, since many imperfections will not appear until this time.  Remember, flaws will catch the paint and cause painting errors.
10. If there are pin holes in the greenware, use some of the porcelain paste that builds up when you use the wet scrub to fill in the pin hole.  You cannot submerge the part in water again after this is done, so fill all pin holes last.  
11. Fire your doll to porcelain in your kiln using your usual method.

Tips:

1. Some people believe that it is not possible to clean greenware as well wet as dry. This is not true; the more practice you have the easier it will be for you to clean efficiently and to spot imperfections in the greenware during wet cleaning.
2. If you fire the pieces while they are not fully dried, be sure to keep a peephole open in the kiln until all moisture has escaped the kiln.
3. You will break fewer pieces with the wet cleaning method!

What You Need:

• greenware
• feather knife
• bowl
• warm water
• wet scrubber
• eye beveling tool