Can You Be Cheaper Than This?

[docweathers]

Some days I amaze myself at how cheap I really am.

 

It seems very easy for me to lose pottery throwing tools in my pigsty. Needles seem to be a regular victim of my chaos, so I have to have a bunch of them. By the time you figure shipping in, they seem to run $3 to $4 dollars. I decided to make up a bunch of them myself.

 

I bought 25 large embroidery needles on eBay for $.99, delivered. It took me about 10 minutes to turn six of them and some old dowell I had around into excellent pottery needles.

 

The math: 6 needles x $3 x 6 (sets per hour)- $.25 for needles = $ 107.75 hr. I know this is chump change for politicians, but it is not bad for potters who few can expect to make more than $20 per hour for their efforts.

 

Oh yes, I spray my small pottery throwing tools high visibility orange to make them easier to find in my slop. So often I cannot find a tool that I set down just a few moments ago.

 

 

Can you beat this?

 

 

[docweathers]

Some days I amaze myself at how cheap I really am.

 

It seems very easy for me to lose pottery throwing tools in my pigsty. Needles seem to be a regular victim of my chaos, so I have to have a bunch of them. By the time you figure shipping in, they seem to run $3 to $4 dollars. I decided to make up a bunch of them myself.

 

I bought 25 large embroidery needles on eBay for $.99, delivered. It took me about 10 minutes to turn six of them and some old dowell I had around into excellent pottery needles.

 

The math: 6 needles x $3 x 6 (sets per hour)- $.25 for needles = $ 107.75 hr. I know this is chump change for politicians, but it is not bad for potters who few can expect to make more than $20 per hour for their efforts.

 

Oh yes, I spray my small pottery throwing tools high visibility orange to make them easier to find in my slop. So often I cannot find a tool that I set down just a few moments ago.

 

 

Can you beat this?

 

 

[GiselleNo5]

If I had a dollar for every time I lose a tool ... !

I can't beat it, but I have an idea for you! 

 

Whenever I make signature stamps I put a hole in the handle so it can be worn on a string around one's neck instead of being put down and promptly lost. I don't think that would help you with throwing tools unfortunately but if you're just working with them and the string is very long maybe drilling a hole would help with your problem. You know, kind of like one of those pacifier leashes for babies.  

OR you could put a magnet on the handle of the needle tool and a magnetic strip on your wheel so they go back there instead of being put down? I plan to do this soon myself. Hoping it helps. 

 

[MatthewV]

Hmmm I use one needle tool. The same one that I started with. See, I would be more worried about accidentally finding one in my hand or other painful place it didn't belong.

 

 

I like having cutting wires everywhere. The fishline ones I make last 2-3 months but cost next to nothing to replace.

[Mark C.]

I seem to wear out needle tools.i go thru them every year or so. They wear down and get to thin.

I use the pro kemper

I try to never lose them as they can hurt you.

I stick them in wood at the trim wheel

And on the deck of throwing wheel

If I,m missing one I stop and find it right then

I,m trying out a few stanless Xiems now they have a thicker point and shaft

I buy them in quantities on sale.

Making tools is most satisfying but needle tools s not one I choose to make

Now skunk tail brushes is another story I love them and make them.

Here's how

Grow bamboo,I suggest at least 4 types

Find road kill skunk and with throw away gloves cut tail off

Let hang to dry for about a year out of sun and rain outside

Tied up high so critters cannot get it.

Pull off the long hairs and try up with nylon heavy thread and epoxy this brush into a dryer pice of bamboo

Glue a nylon string loop to handle top so the brush can hang down from a hook to dry after using and is rinsed.

[Denice]

I am like Matthew I like to keep track of my needle tools don't want to get stuck.  To keep track of my cut off wires I put cup hooks on the wall close to my wheel.  Denice

[flowerdry]

This thread is veering off a little, so let me help with that.

I was forever losing my bits of chamois that I use to smooth rims since they are the same color as the clay slop.  I tried attaching fishing bobbers but that didn't seem to work either.  I recently found a type of chamois that is bright blue.  Haven't lost a strip so far but it's too early to tell.

[Roberta12]

my needle tools come apart.  I was thinking about putting some super glue or something in the little hole......

 

I buy the big yellow sponges used for grouting tile, etc.  Very fine texture, and cut those up.  They are good for throwing, cleaning, making your own underglaze stamp pads, propping up sides of trays.....  It costs about $3 for a sponge and I can get a lot of little sponges out of that. 

[Celia UK]

Losing little bits of chamois ...I can empathise with that! Finding it in your reclaimed clay when throwing comes as a bit of a shock!!! Solution I got from a fellow potter, was to clamp one end under the lid of a small plastic film canister. The canister floats in your throwing water and the whole thing can hang on the edge of a tub or jug other whatever.

[Joy pots]

Stick your pin tools in a sponge, easy to find.

[docweathers]

GiselleNo5

 

I really like the "magnet tools" approach. I am the author of the Ceramics Monthly  article by that name. It has one flaw, me. When I am intently involved in making something at the limits of my skills, which is most of the time, I don't have the habit patterns established to get tools automatically put back on a magnet, or metal strip. I tend to drop them on the closest horizontal surface.

 

One handy way I've come up with to find tools with magnets attached is to scan my pigsty with one of those Harbor Freight magnets on a stick. It's amazing how strange things suddenly pop out your water bucket, your recycled clay or from a hidden crevasse on the floor.

 

 

-----

 

The idea of various kinds of "floaties" on chamois and sponges is great. It is far better than finding some strange lump in the wall of a large pot.... Which I have done.

 

As much as I like to recycle everything, I think I will pass the idea of making brushes from recycled skunk. 

[Celia UK]

Not much in the way of skunks in the UK to my knowledge. And what are critters?

[glazenerd]

Critter pic:

Nerd

[MatthewV]

The wood handle I epoxied to the chamois has held to years of floating about the water. I split a doll in half and clamped the leather between the pieces. There is also and added benefit of something to hold onto! I cannot say it floats in the slurry of "water" but is still easy to find.

[Roberta12]

Celia, critters are small animals.  Skunks, raccoons, moles, voles, packrats, those would all be critters.  I don't think rabbits are critters....they are bunnies

 

Roberta

[terrim8]

Dollar store packs of black paint sponges ( $1 for a bunch/pack)  for waxing the bottom of pots. I thin the wax out with water too. cheep cheep cheep

[alabama]

Celia,

Wild or tame animals are critters.

Y'all remember, Elly Mae Clampett had critters, tame but formerly wild.

In the context of hanging up the skunks tail so the critters won't bother it, a bunny is not considered a critter cause its unlikely to bother a skunks tail. On the other hand, if your flowers, lettuce, or carrots are eaten by rabbits, then they're critters. We have more possums, raccoons, squirrels, and armadillos than skunks. But they are around. At fort Toulouse, road kill of all types are fleshed out and tanned as demonstrations.

 

I think the best chamois are actually cut out strips of pig skin work gloves.

One glove will yield several.

 

For needle tools I make mine out of discarded welding rods, b!ow gun darts, or stainless steel automobile radio antennas.

 

See ya,

Alabama

[terrim8]

The part about finding stuff in the reclaimed clay bucket was funny and hit home- I have found little lost treasures there when I empty the slurry into my plaster bowl. 

The plaster bowl is a variation on my plaster slabs for reclaiming clay. The bowl is big- about 1 1/2 feet in diameter and about 3 inches deep and the walls are about 3-4 inches thick for adsorption and  it holds lots of slurry.  

[graybeard]

Gismo Guy I GOTCHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

About 2 weeks ago my favorite needle tool broke and I used a

surgical pin that the Drs used about 6 or 7 years to pin my thumb

in place. (when he pulled it out I told the Dr I wanted it as a souvenir

to remind me to never do that again) I just stuck it in the old

needle tool handle. A FREEBEE!

 

gbeard.

[Babs]

Wine cork for needles at the end of EVERY session. Then placed in container cork up with other often used tools.

Don't keep my sharp knives in drawers either.

HANDS are becoming more precious now though I still find my work outside glaves in various parts ofhte property as I find them excruciatingly annoying.

[docweathers]

Gismo Guy I GOTCHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

About 2 weeks ago my favorite needle tool broke and I used a

surgical pin that the Drs used about 6 or 7 years to pin my thumb

in place. (when he pulled it out I told the Dr I wanted it as a souvenir

to remind me to never do that again) I just stuck it in the old

needle tool handle. A FREEBEE!

 

gbeard.

You inspired me to follow up on an idea. I have an 18 inch magnesium rod out of a friends broken femur. It's about time that I find a good use for it either in my welding or pottery.

 

Also I've been inspired by several folks attacking floaties  of different sorts to their sponges and chamois. I have ordered from eBay, for a big  $1.64, a half-dozen foam fishing floats to attach to my sponges and chamois. I splurged  ($1.64) on the floats because I thought it might actually be prettier and more durable than using some of the closed cell foam I have laying around. Yes, art pretty, pretty art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Dick White]

I like the small fishing bobber floats for my chamois because I can use the spring-loaded wire hookie-thing on the ends of the bobber intended to hold onto the fishline to attach to a little hole in the end of the chamois.  Better than wood/cork floats. A cheap source of chamois material is a car wash chamois. In addition to many little chamois, you can make a big one too.

 

On the subject of freebie tools, make flexible ribs out of old plastic gift cards. Or new ones, just ask the cashier if you can have it. It has no value to anybody else until you pay for it. Cut one side to a curve with ordinary scissors, and then gently sand the curve smooth. Make some in a variety of different curves to suit different needs. Old credit cards are less useful because the punched up letters will make a mess of your clay surface, but you can cut little narrow ribs out of the top half.

[terrim8]

I used to use "sponge on a chop stick" to clean deeper cylinders. Last year I bought a nice sponge on a stick but was too cheap to buy the replacement sponges, until I found these paint sponge rollers at the hardware store- they are very inexpensive & come in packs of 4 and fit the stick perfectly.