Joseph Fireborn
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dropped my bison trimming tool that I have had and used for 9 years.
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I know! I emailed him immediately, but it looks like his etsy shop is closed and his facebook hasn't been updated in a while. I am guessing maybe he is out of the business or has moved on?
I saw a lot of people on Etsy are now selling the same type of tool, but his craft was so good. Hard to accept moving on!
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The handle fits my hand so very well.
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I'm guessing that the carbide broke when you dropped it...how many pieces? If you have any welding experience, you may be able to silver solder the pieces back together and grind the joints to the original cross-section. Otherwise consider taking it to someone that does have such experience...
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From the album: Dreams 2024
Woke up at 3AM, have had this cup in my head since then. Finally sketched it just to get it out of my thoughts. Top part is unglazed with my black crackle slip, sprayed with wood ash mixture lightly to sheen versus too rough of dry feeling to the lips, but still will be tactile so that you know what you are drinking from. Inside glaze is a high iron glaze like an oilspot, but slightly oversaturated and crystallized as it cools, sheen but satin not to take or distract the eyes from the eruption of the cylinder. Bottom half of the cup is a cracking pinholing glaze, sort of like my surface experiments but safe in the hands, tactile but not sharp coning into the surface of the black cylinder. raw clay foot allowing the pinholes and cracks in the white glaze to match so that it isn't flawless design but purpose. -
Woke up at 3AM, have had this cup in my head since then. Finally sketched it just to get it out of my thoughts. Top part is unglazed with my black crackle slip, sprayed with wood ash mixture lightly to sheen versus too rough of dry feeling to the lips, but still will be tactile so that you know what you are drinking from. Inside glaze is a high iron glaze like an oilspot, but slightly oversaturated and crystallized as it cools, sheen but satin not to take or distract the eyes from the eruption of the cylinder. Bottom half of the cup is a cracking pinholing glaze, sort of like my surface experiments but safe in the hands, tactile but not sharp coning into the surface of the black cylinder. raw clay foot allowing the pinholes and cracks in the white glaze to match so that it isn't flawless design but purpose.
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Good to know. I might just find a corner in my garage and neatly organize everything. Still haven't decided on what to do. I dislike selling things because I am not a haggler at all and that process annoys me greatly.
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Not sure I am out forever. I am just building 2 businesses and I have 3 kids, by the time I am done working I am pretty exhausted. I thought I will just keep this, but its been 3-4 years since I have touched it except a few times when I had a moment. I just figure I won't get to it for another 5 years maybe. I guess I could just move it to a corner and let it sit, but I worry about things locking up and control panels not being used for several years etc.
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Thanks for all the replies wonderful people. I appreciate it.
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Yea. I guess I will have to get on my wife's facebook and see what I can find out. Seems marketplace is the way to go.
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Hello. I haven't been in this thread part of these forums before. If this price check is against the rules then please just remove the post. I wasn't sure where else to ask it since I haven't been here in a while. I am probably going to be selling my Studio soon but the main 3 items are my kiln, wheel and slab roller. I wanted to make sure I knew the going rates so I can offer a fair price to myself and the potential buyers. L&L Easy18-3 with an upgraded digital controller. It has been gentle used with probably 500 firings, half of them being bisque. Although I don't know the true amount because I replaced the controller. The elements look pretty good and the last firing was 2 months ago and it went smooth as expected. Thomas Stuart Legend Pottery Wheel 1/3HP - Still in perfect working order. Shimpo Slab Roller 30x50, the table one. - I really appreciate any feedback regarding what I should start at for these machines.
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Joseph Fireborn commented on Elias Scalise's gallery image in Browse Member Galleries
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Glorious cup. -
About to mix glaze for the first time in 3 years. Excited and terrified at the same time.
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Denice,
The firing was subpar; as to be expected I presume after 3-4 years of not firing consistently. I have dismantled my pottery studio and it is all sitting there unused. I am debating on selling it all. I just don't have the urge right now, but I know I cannot replace it for the price I will sell it for, so I haven't.
I am terribly sorry to hear about your cancer. You are on the right path, search for only the best doctors. I went through years of cancer treatment and if it wasn't for the best doctors in the south east I am pretty sure I would not be here typing this message for you today. I wish you all the best and I know if anyone can beat it, you can.
Much love!
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Thank you for the pep talk, I am going to start calling tomorrow, I tried Friday and everyone was closed. What I am going through is nothing compared to what you had to endure. I wouldn't sell your equipment, stuff it in a corner. You will be wanting to get back into it in a few years. I sold my kickwheel after I bought a used Brent. The man who bought it was around 45 years old, he had done pottery in high school. The day he purchased it he just found out he had been appointed to a high level security job with the government. Several months later I received a photo of a pot and a message that my kickwheel had saved his life. He said his new job had so much stress that throwing every night is the only thing that kept him sane. You better hang on to it, who knows there maybe another pandemic in a few years. Just a thought, have you ever considered making teapots, you can start out with a one cupper and work your way up. With love Denice
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Everyone's journey is different. Doesn't mean it isn't hard to endure. Don't compare and contrast, just focus on you and your plan.
Kiln in a corner.
My wife said the same thing and she is a brilliant woman who I always listen to. So for now it sits in a corner. The kickwheel story is sort of the same story as mine. My hands were badly frozen up and I had nothing during the day, so it sort of saved my life in a way as well.
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Pour inside, spray outside. I will say spraying is a labor of love. Takes a lot longer to spray a pot than dip it, and it can be difficult to get consistent results. Dipping is definitely a better method. I need to embrace it more.
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Re-creating a happy accident glaze
Joseph Fireborn replied to EarthToMatthew's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
That article is amazing. Book marking that. I don't know if I will ever have to do that, but if I do. Wow. -
Re-creating a happy accident glaze
Joseph Fireborn replied to EarthToMatthew's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
That glaze does not have any Gerstley Borate. There is no way it would look like that unless you under-fired it. The fact that you can put another glaze on top of it and it is still mostly on the test tile means there is definitely no GB, unless that other glaze on top has absolutely no frit in it? So if you wanted to replicate that glaze and figure out what it is, I would do this. 1. Since you said you had a few unlabeled bags, I would mix up that exact glaze but missing the 50% GB. 2. Figure out how many cups you want to use, so say its 10 attempts to figure this out. Measure out 100ml of glaze with the mystery recipe but don't include the Gerstley Borate. Instead leave that out. But use the same amount of water you would have used if it was in there. 3. Measure out 10ml with a syringe into each cup, making sure you stir well before each one. I use a milk frother for this... 4. Take your 10 mystery attempt materials that look similar to Gerstley Borate that you might have used instead. Put 50% weight(the missing GB amount) of the mystery chances into each cup. You will have to do the math on this to figure out what this should be, but it isn't difficult at all. 5. Glaze a test tile or a little test dish or whatever you want in the 10 mystery glazes and make sure to record everything. 6. Fire it all on the exact same schedule with the same load mass that you did for the first tile. 7. Pull out the results and keep any of them that look similar to the original tile, go from there. -
Just things like epsom salt and soda ash. As far as effecting the glazes for sure depending on the amount you add.
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Mostly things to change the viscosity for brushing and some flux to make the slip adhere better to the greenware underneath after firing.
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Spring time in Georgia. Beautiful weather inspires me to get out in the studio. I just cleaned it up and organized it, which means I very well might make some pots for the first time in 2 years. Had to make sure the potters wheel even still worked today. Thankfully it buzzed right up. Kiln turned on as well! Whew!
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Are you going to post pictures Denice? When/if you do please tag me. I would love to see it.
As far as the shoulder, yea. I am trying to keep everything to a minimum. My work is super simple now and I have optimized the flow of my machinery and stuff so well that I don't have a ton of physical labor to do anymore.
I worked at Starbucks as a peak supervisor and working the espresso machines for 4.5 years just destroyed my shoulder. Picking up gallon jugs of milk 500-600 times a day pouring it, steaming it, pouring that and pumping syrups then bending over and putting the milk back in the fridge... Just wrecked me.
Thankfully I have moved on.
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Ow that sounds like that could cause a lot of problems, our friend carried a heavy mailbag for 35 years. When I was 20 I worked in a dental lab and had to stand on a ladder and lift a 25 lb bag of plaster over my head and dump it in the plaster bin. They finally gave the job to a man, it was causing to much commotion with the other workers. The other women didn't think I should do that job and the men would look up my skirt (uniform). I don't think that type of work did long term damage to me, I am 70 and have MS and can still pick up a 25lb bag of clay off the floor with one hand. I laid out my mural yesterday, I have to remake quite a few tiles. It is three dimensional and is a landscape of Arizona so getting a good fit has been quite challenging. Denice
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That story is so amazing. Classic workforce story. I can't wait to see your mural.
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That is pretty close in rates I doubt it will matter. As with everything though, best to test before you commit to a ton of production work. I make a slip out of a clay body that I dry and then grind down into a powder form so I can mix it with other additives. All of my work uses this slip over another clay body. I love slipping pots this way, it adds a lot to the final form if done right. I am not sure exactly what you are after, but the best thing to do is try applying you slip to different stages of the green ware in the drying process. Find which one you get the best results with for what you are after, and then repeat that process a few times before committing it it.
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Turning your hobby into a business
Joseph Fireborn replied to ceramicjames's topic in Business, Marketing, and Accounting
Happy Birthday! -
Turning your hobby into a business
Joseph Fireborn replied to ceramicjames's topic in Business, Marketing, and Accounting
Thank you for following up! -
Turning your hobby into a business
Joseph Fireborn replied to ceramicjames's topic in Business, Marketing, and Accounting
I totally agree here, but not everyone is capable of doing this physically day in and out. I wasn't and it is one of the main reasons I decided to stop. I kept trying but my body wouldn't let me due to health issues from the past. Your statement alone that it takes decades to develop your body into the machine required basically sums it up. At some point you have to make pots to sell pots, and if you cannot make pots you cannot make money. That is a drastically limiting business model for someone who might face health adversity; this is basically all I was stating, the OP was asking what things limit turning a hobby into a business. Physical requirements are one of them. On top of this, you cannot turn it over to someone else if you go through a health crisis. If you make the pots, decorate the pots, fire the pots, etc. No one person can replace you. It is a delicate business plan that requires you front and center every single day. I don't understand why anyone would make that comment, but I often find myself not understanding people. If I somehow made that comment in my post, I apologize I had no intentions of that meaning. If anything I admire people who can succeed as a full-time potter with no other support, it is impressive. -
Turning your hobby into a business
Joseph Fireborn replied to ceramicjames's topic in Business, Marketing, and Accounting
I always find the discussions of success interesting. Success is such a hard word to pin down, what some people consider success to others might be laughable. A potter making 50K a year in profits(not revenue) might be wildly successful to themselves, but someone else might consider that awful with the amount of manual labor it took for a person to do that in most cases. Making pots as an individual is really hard work no matter what techniques you use. Success is really up to the individual, if you are happy making 10K a year in profits and are securing your lively hood through another manner, congrats you are happy and successful! Pottery as a business is probably one of the most challenging forms of art type business you can take on. The equipment is large, the materials are heavy, the ingredients are a hazard and the time and manual labor that goes into each piece is usually under valued. If you sell in person, you have to haul tons of stuff to a fair or show. If you sell online, you have to package and ship materials that are fragile and cannot be easily replaced. Neither of those things are optimal. It really is one of the most challenging sole owner businesses out there. Which probably explains why there are not a lot of individual million dollar potters, but plenty rich in livelihood, joy and a good bit of money. I had a fundamental problem with pottery and turning it into a business, it doesn't scale very well. At some point you are going to cap out on the amount of shows you can do, pots you can make, and boxes you can pack. If you want to push into 6 figures you have to be really smart with what you do and be savvy in time management. It isn't easy to do and as others have shown it definitely is possible to do; but other types of businesses can scale so much easier with a single person and modern machinery. I really like making pots and I like selling them too. Knowing someone is drinking out of my cups year after year experiencing joy is a nice feeling. It is one of the best reasons to be a potter. Not many forms of art are used daily in such an important thing as nourishment of our bodies. I still think being rich in joy is way better than being rich in money. Unfortunately you need both! I think I agree with GEP on this subject of instagram. Those people with millions of followers are wildly successful at getting likes and follows, but really they are earning way more money for instagram than themselves. That being said I know that instagram can add to your sales and get visibility to your shop, but I think the potters who utilize it the best are not the ones who have the quarterly flash sales, it is the potters who have a constant online shop available for the impulse buys. When someone is scrolling through their feed and the algorithm places one of your pots on their feed, they click through, click to your website and convert. That conversion can be a newsletter signup, clicking your show dates, or buying a pot from your shop. If you don't have any thing like this available and you are on instagram, then you need to make an adjustment. -
For sure, I left my job a few months ago. Stuck it out for 2 years until I was outgrowing my wifes income which she was the main provider. It was hard putting in 60 hours a week for 2 years, but done. So hoping now to regain my pottery hobby.
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What Denice said. The stuff we think is terrible sometimes is exactly what they want. I had some pots that were on a table in my house where I was observing them. We had a family over that had helped us with some hand me down clothing for my 3 boys. They saw the cups and were going crazy over them. I wasn't too satisfied with the details of them, but they were functionally perfect. So I offered them to the family. I spoke with my sister in law a few weeks ago and she brought up that they use those cups to drink tea/coffee out of every single morning for the last 3 years or so. I was just going to throw them away because I didn't like the looks. I imagine this is one of the greatest factors that separate a great unsuccessful artist and a great successful artist. I run another business now and people constantly amaze me at what they think looks great. I am looking forward to making some pottery this summer and I will probably list all the functional pots on etsy instead of hammering them if I don't like the looks. I have grown a fair bit in the last 2 years of self employment.
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An experiment in Fritware Zero3
Joseph Fireborn replied to High Bridge Pottery's topic in Clay and Glaze Chemistry
Nice research Joel. -
This is super important. I am glad you wrote this Callie. I completely forgot about the techniques that add to the bodies. When I was working with the bodies, I hand trimmed everything on a banding wheel and a wooden knife, just ripped it away. Lots of failures until I got the hang of it.
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