Talk:Bisque doll
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[edit]Nice article! But somebody should make a bisque doll of Susan Boyle. The resemblance is uncanny! ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 12:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Some clarification by a person knowledgeable in fired materials (ceramics?) would be helpful.
[edit]Some clarification by a person knowledgeable in fired materials (ceramics?) would be helpful. Half an hour of expert time focused on these articles will be of great value. (All references are within Wikipedia.) It started with a simple reading about a “China Doll” that led me to the Bisque Doll article. However, as I read more, I got stuck in some inconsistencies about the terms, methods, and materials used in fired materials. I am not sure if “ceramic” applies to Bisque Dolls (compare Bisque (pottery) which puts bisque in earthenware because of its porosity, a prized characteristic since Bisque can be painted with simple acrylic paints. Yet the multiple painting and multiple firing of the Bisque Doll could not be done with acrylic paints. This I can say with certainty: a specific inconsistency is found by comparing temperatures for firing bisque materials when a simple comparison is made using the following Wikipedia articles.
Bisque Doll is fired, often repeatedly, “at more than 1260 °C (2300 °F)”
Bisque (pottery) is usually fired “at least 1000°C, although higher temperatures are common.”
The Porcelain article really spins things around by noting “Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids.” Then we read: “Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 degrees Celsius, coated with glaze and then sent for a second glaze-firing at a temperature of about 1,300 degrees Celsius or greater.” All this in the introductory “Scope” section; Things get even murkier further along.
The “Hard-paste porcelain” article gives us “Hard-paste porcelain is now differentiated from soft-paste porcelain mainly by the firing temperature, with the former being higher, to around 1400°C, and the latter to around 1200°C.” and I still have no clue if Bisque is hard or soft paste. My best guess is most likely it is neither, being these terms to not apply to Bisque at all.
I stopped and posted these thoughts. HELP!! EXPERT HELP ME & MY GRANDCHILD!!
I readily accept that many of these obscurifications are just semantics and with common use and technical use only rarely the same. Still, for a grandkid working on a report, deciding which temperature to use is impossible. It is equally clear that nailing down more facts for a report is even harder. Now there are many windows or portals that are used to approach Wikipedia and many uses of if contents. If there is one window critical to the acceptance of Wikipedia in academics (especially primary grade schools) it is the window of a person, not an expert, indeed not even knowledgeable about a subject, who comes to Wikipedia for a 2 or 4 page report on a topic. The consistency between articles was legendary for World Book and Britannica. And it must be so for Wikipedia, at least as a goal.