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Lesson #541


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Rookies!!!

 

How about being so engrossed in figuring out a glaze formula while glazing pieces that you keep walking away to make notes. You fire the entire load and go out to check the results: only to notice the bucket of glaze on the table, and high fired bisq in the kiln. I should get an award for such an EPIC blunder.

 

Nerd

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Ron, that mistake has shown up various times through the years on my list of blunders. One of my favorites still is carrying a leatherhard piece and smacking into a car side mirror causing the piece to fly through the air. The texture created by the road blacktop was fabulous. I keep meaning to texture more pots that way. Just need to figure out the shape that would work for that.

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I wanted a large fruit bowl for personal use. It would be big, beautifully and subtly glazed. It would be my early masterpiece. It was gonna be YUGE.
So after spending many hours carefully hand rolling coils of just a certain even size, and layering them around the inside of my largest mixing bowl, I scraped the inside and put it on a rack to dry. Days later I popped it out on a board and scraped the outside. It was elegant of form, the walls and base were of even thickness. It was greenware perfection. I let it dry.

Just before taking the rest of my small mostly-jewelry work to be fired, all of which could have fit inside "the" bowl, I took a sponge and began smoothing the inside. Suddenly it occurred to me I better hurry up and get the outside wet as well or...there was a crack and the top half of the bowl popped off in my hands, leaving a measly jagged soup bowl sized base. I found it useful only as a target for my disappointment.

Thanks for sharing all the stories, now I feel a lot better.

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Thanks for sharing all the stories, now I feel a lot better.

 

Yes, thanks everyone for sharing your stories, isn't wonderful that we can laugh at ourselves,

 

Personally I feel its the best medicine a person can buy.

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I knocked an entire cart-load of I think 8 freshly thrown jars with lids over. It was my entire day's work, and right after I did it, I let go a massive, floridly-embellished F-bomb at top volume right in front of my sessional teacher, who I respected very highly, and who happened to walk through the door right next to me at that very moment.

 

He did not approve of swearing.

 

It happens.

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You know how long it takes to assemble a teapot? I put my freshly assembled teapot down on the wheelhead, then got up and tripped on the foot pedal, sending the teapot rolling around between the wheelhead and the splashpan like a high-speed tumbleweed.

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Mea, been there done that, all too many times. I have forced myself into the habit of turning off the wheel after anything. At the same time, I now assemble teapots on a banding wheel while standing or sitting on a stool. I also have a large square box, that I place over the wheel head and splash pan and tray that allows me to use the are as a table. I have so little space for unloading kilns, for work space and wedging area that I try to make everything multiple use.

 

best,

Pres

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mea been there done that. actually too often!!

 

there's a wheel genie that gets me the exact moment i sit back and stare at my masterpiece. i step forward absentmindedly on the foot pedal and watch my hard worked piece fly off the wheel. my best pots have always landed at my feet. 

 

its a v. painful place for me since throwing is still so much a challenge for me. its taken me a long time to like my pieces. now that i do i feel sad when i lose the very one i was successful at.

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Wonderful to read all those posts! And yes Ron, it is always better to laugh than to cry in the studio...

 

How about:

 

Havin a perfectly thrown big orb (porcelain, no less) on the wheel and leaning in to look at the right side of the object and in leaning in leaning heavy on the right foot (yes, exactly, thats the one still on the pedal...)

 

:rolleyes:

 

Joseph: now that's real art!

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When I was doing one of those community challenges, I had been working super hard to make something nice. I was standing up to look at the shape since it was so large on the wheel. I stood up hit the foot petal and ZOOM, flap flap flap. No more challenge for me. hahahha 

 

I am pretty careful around that foot wheel now when I have pots on the wheel. Only takes a few times before you don't do that anymore. Next time it happens I am going to make a stack like May does though. 

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  • 1 month later...

You know how long it takes to assemble a teapot? I put my freshly assembled teapot down on the wheelhead, then got up and tripped on the foot pedal, sending the teapot rolling around between the wheelhead and the splashpan like a high-speed tumbleweed.

I have three so-called studio cats, but they're more like toddlers. The wheel is switched off when I finish a piece.

 

My lesson was using Cassius Basaltic to form little hollow orbs. Sure, I poked a 1/4 inch hole through the bottom into the newspaper core - but rested the items on said hole in the kiln to keep them from rolling around. Then I single-fired to cone 5. The effect of the gasses escaping through the hole but being stymied by the shelf would have been spectacular had these orbs not been shaped like cats. Every one looked like they just returned from a trip to Mexico and happened to drink the water after eating beans.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lesson #637

 - Don't make the outside of the pot smaller than the inside of the pot when trimming.

Lesson #638

 - Use the tools you have to help determine the thickness of the walls and bottoms of the pots.

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