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Stamping Pottery


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Does anyone have any good tips on stamping pottery? I can't seem to meet at the same point I start at. If I start in the middle of a bowl and work my

way around I never end up in the right place. More like a wavy line instead of straight. Thought about shining a laser pen on my pot and working in

a level circle around, but a level lasers cost $$$. Any good tips would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

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With your potters or banding wheel turning slowly, make a very light line with your needle tool.

Then make your first stamp ... turn the wheel and make your second directly across from it ...

make the next stamps halfway between those two marks and go on from there with stamps

evenly spaced ... Lightly rub out any of the original needle tool line that still shows.

 

Is this any help?

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Thank you! Yes, this does seem to work.

 

 

Looks like you found a good method yourself I actually like to use one of those inexpensive coordinate lasers one can get at Home Depot for hanging stuff on walls for about $20, gives me a horizontal and a vertical line I can put anywhere. That combined with a graduated disk allows me to make exactly dimensioned repeating designs. There is an old saying that 'When the student is ready the master appears" sometimes the master is within.

 

Regards,

Charles

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  • 4 years later...

Vegetable dye sold for cakes is the perfect stuff for marking clay. Use a fine liner brush held horizontally while the pot is still on the wheel. I also have a bat marked with circles and different divisions radiating from the same centre point as the circles. This allows the piece to be divided into even sections. Especially if the divisions are marked on the bat on which you are throwing.

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I also use a template with the degrees of a circle marked out and place the pot in the center. This sits on the banding wheel and I also use Chris's method of marking a very light circle around the pot and a small mark with a needle tool at 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees. I'll stamp (I mostly carve) my design at those 4 places first then divide up each section after that by eye and it comes up pretty even that way, if you are looking to repeat the design all the way around.

 

Paul

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I agree with Chris and Paul on marking halfway between first marks etc - when an even number is needed.

 

However aesthetically, odd numbers can be more pleasing (gardeners will say planting is better in odd numbers). To help me divide bowls up for decorating I bought MKM's decorating discs - a set of two sturdy flexible transparent sheets. Each Decorating Disk has its own even or odd segemented divisions - designed to simplify and speed up the process of doing symmetrical decoration on any form. I bought the small set - 4" diameter. Love them!

 

www.mkmpotterytools.com

 

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