oldlady

welcome to the forum> canada has a lot of open space, where are you planning to have a store, if that is what you plan to do? the kind of business you describe could be called a pottery supplier if you sold equipment and clay. it sounds a little like a "paint your own pottery" place. where do you plan to draw customers from, an urban area or do you plan to ship things?

nancy, all the above and one other thought. look into the savings in buying clay above the price change. my clay changes price at 500 and 1000 pounds. if i could store and use a ton, 2000 pounds i would save more. check your clay prices.

ask for photos of the interior showing the elements and the damaged bricks. ask for measurements, depth and width. ask for photo of the side panel that shows the electrical info. adk that the photos be taken with a LIGHT on. some photos show only blackness, totally useless. ask for photos of the controller, is it attached to the kiln or wall mounted? also look at the marketplace listings here. Mt Airy, maryland is not a long way from connecticut. and someone is selling a kiln there but not enough info and no photos.

you can use a fine line sharpie on the raw clay at the bottom.

hi, cbo, welcome to the forum. i have a friend who makes animals and uses long horseshoe nails with the heads the hoof end of the legs. they do not melt at cone 6 and always look good. you might try them with the pointed end up and may not need the long ones.

my long bailey slab roller has become my work table of choice. when i had it set up, it went onto a very thick all solid wood door. several inches overhang in the back to the wall holds quart, pint and half pint plastic tubs on the left of the roller. they come from a chinese restaurant which sells them to me for fifty cents each. i would buy from a restaurant supply house but they are all at least 30 miles away. the right half space next to the wall holds very thick foam rubber cushion innards. most of my things are flat and i use wood for the forms, cover them with pantyhose and press into clay and the rubber "pillows". the foam comes up around the wood and forms the item. the bottom is flat and when i transfer it to the shelf made of 5/8 inch drywall, the pantyhose knot is the handle allowing me to support it. since the front side of the slab roller has about 3 inches of the table top, i have a space at each end, 8 feet apart, to put a box right next to the slab roller's flat surface. and tiny bits go straight into the plastic box and is held there until i eventually vacuum the box clean. since the box is screwed down, i do not have to worry about knocking it over in error. a slightly damp sponge slides the bits right over the edge and into the box. the boxes are only 4 inches long so there is room left for long sticks to measure thicknesses. they stack onto a single finish nail and run across the support side of the slab roller. tools hang on nails all along the side of the slab roller table giving me about 6-7 feet of hanging tools used at the slab roller. there are wallpaper scrapers to smooth freshly made slabs and cut long pieces of clay, putty knives of various sizes, a pizza roller on each half and a ruler, cheese cutters and old kitchen towel at each end. each tool is hanging under the edge of the tabletop and not sticking out to catch my jeans as i move along the table. i can "see" the tools easily because i have big black sharpie marks directly above each item. so it is just reach under and pull out what i need and put it back so the tabletop is always clear of tools. if i keep the top clean, there is nothing more to do at the end of a session than put the last drywall shelf into the rack, pull out the damp sponge and wipe the tabletop. BTW, a thrift shop find of a metal butter dish top makes a wonderful damp sponge holder without smearing wet clay anywhere.

YES! YES! THAT IS IT! mine was a bright blue 3 speed ladies bike without that horizontal bar. too bad the photo does not have a totally light background. the 1956 or 7 original was $49.00 and it was a fortune for me. i rode it all over the city and over the bridge and all the way to the riding stables at the far end of belle isle park. spent my whole allowance, $2, on one hour of riding a pinto who would leave the trail and jump a big log. heaven............ thank you, hulk.

was anything left ? it sounds like a bittersweet goodbye though you have more than earned it.

just a question from a cone 6 user. what is a kiln setter? i skimmed the article and see the pictures, is it also known as wadding? the stuff used in cone 10 firings? or maybe it is used as a plate or tile rack? i see that it is not the usual mistake of calling a kiln SITTER a kiln SETTER. what are they for?

please read from he first post on january 23, 2017. the question has been answered and you can find the info you seek if you just read the entire thread. it is very frustrating to find people still calling old kilns "Sitter" kilns.

Liz, just want to know something about your slow drying. if i have understood the situation with regard to handles and additions, the purpose of covering the final piece is to allow the water content in each part to equalize so the whole cup can dry without cracking. if that is true, why do you slow down the entire process by keeping finished work under cover for weeks? surely a day or even two days is enough to equalize the moisture content. what is the point of covering so long?

rolf, welcome to the forum. you will find lots of good info here. and opinions. you have been given good advice now you can hear an opinion. you mentioned "old" because the date was 1972. i felt insulted since that is the year i bought my wheel, not a brent, a pacifica. i deliberately chose the one i bought instead of the other one which was a brent. there was a man pacing back and forth until i decided and he was happy to get the brent. in my OPINION, the brent is noisy and i did not want to listen to that whine. i guess the man with the brent had a different opinion. no, i do not use my wheel like mark has used his, but i can hear the radio when i use it. only servicing has been the rubber belts and replacetment of the pedal after lightning hit a tree 30 feet from the house and blew out lots of appliances that were in use at the time.

thanks, i see how the hole in the side of the table and the diameter of the pipe you are using makes a difference, too. could not imagine how a single nail would hold it firmly enough for you to work on it. good idea. you have experienced the use of a sock and see how easy it is to remove an item from the sock covered form. a single nylon stocking or piece of panty hose allows quick removal of an interior bowl when making slab dishware.

bam, please let us know the results of your firing.

the discussion on kiln wash is neverending. it ended for me when this recipe was given by one of the most experienced potters here. i applied it then, years ago, and have not had any flaking or other problems. it just stays there, quietly doing its job. i do not seem to spill glaze on shelves so i do not have to clean them often. years ago. i mostly use it on new shelves. one of the ingredients is calcined EPK. to calcine the EPK, just fire a bowl full, i think to just bisque temperature. once mixed with water, the wash stays wet if in a tight container. if it dries out, just add some water to a consistency that allows application by small roller. you can buy the two ingredients at any supply store if there are any in your area of the USA recipe for kiln wash 50% alumina hydrate 25% Edgar Plastic Kaolin EPK 25% calcined Edgar Plastic Kaolin EPK

i decided years ago to become the top part of a jigger and jolly "machine". i like making bowls and a friend made me a stack of 6 sizes of walnut discs after watching me use a half inch thick plastic disc to make a bowl. an expert in using a lathe, he used a block of walnut and thinned the edges of each of the 6 sizes of rib to be perfect for the purpose. the technique is to open and shape a flowerpot with a thick bottom. when it becomes about 3 or so inches high, i insert one of the smaller discs, usually the 5 inch one, absolutely straight down in the center of the spinning pot. the disc forces the clay into a perfectly round interior, pushing down the walls and thickening the wall area close to the wheelhead. i push it down until i am sure it is just thick enough in the center to become the floor of the foot ring. pulling up the walls is then fairly easy, the clay has been made more plastic than it was when i started and travels up the outside of the bowl neatly. any throwing rings are on the outside and can be removed with a thin stainless rib. a final downward push corrects any tiny wobble and the pot is not only finished but almost dry. the only trimming is the foot ring itself and that is fun for me. that smooth outside allows me to almost immediately apply colored slip to be carved into my favorite designs. why waste time on throwing and permanently bending my old fingers when the fun is in the decorating?

looks like a good idea. was stymied for a minute before i noticed the first photo was in the last position just the way album photos are backward. so the white mug is grooved and you place the handle parallel to the grooves. would like to see a short video on your technique. i hate doing handles. read some good stuff this am about "souring" the clay for handles before attaching them. hamer & hamer's big book.

notice the very uneven application that leaves the rims without whatever the white stuff is and very close to bare clay in some areas. they are being fired to cone 10 or so? is it a flashing slip, not a glaze? is there a different definition in her language that she is using the word glaze but means something we would have a different word for? is she somehow using reduction in that kiln? notice the elements, how did they get that way?

are you assuming the black is a glaze? it appears to me that the clay has been treated like raku, the black roughness is the result of burning in a closed container. no glaze involved except the white lines.

kswan, there is a trick to stirring things without making a mess. it is true that if you use a 10 inch long paint stirring stick with plastic blades and remove it from a 6 inch container while it is still spinning, you can spread wet stuff all over the room. the secret is to stir only while the container is sitting inside a tall paper bag, bucket or box to catch the overspray. pushing a just damp sponge down the central stick while it is running slowly sends excess material down into the blade area. a quick spin sends it flying into the original container, bag, bucket or box.

beebop, i rely on other people for recipes. THANK YOU, MIN AND EVERYONE ELSE! and have never experimented with more than color. so i really do not understand why some recipes have 2 decimal points, like 42.49 or 26.18. if a recipe has to be that precise, how can you possibly measure, mix, add water, sieve and store it without disturbing those teeny, tiny amounts? what kind of glaze effect are you searching for?

mark, since you have one of the wax melting machines, how does it differ from a crock pot other than having a temperature control? ann, what i want is the kind that was built in my skinny 3 speed English bike from 1954, was the name Raleigh? coloured fenders with about 8 inches of white on the end.

i cannot find the zip code for nowhere so i cannot send you some of the 3110 that is filling a plastic shoebox on my shelf. maybe i should look for rabbit hole but there is not even a state name.

i discovered that i have lots of pots on painted shelves that are stuck down just like the museums. stuck with years of dirt. they are really way up there on the top shelf.