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Trimming Lids.


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I don't use a chuck, throw upside down then trim right side up on a neoprene disc. Piece of firm foam in center to stop from deforming it if I'm throwing a knob on. Flange on the lid, no gallery on the pots.

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I don't use a chuck, throw upside down then trim right side up on a neoprene disc. Piece of firm foam in center to stop from deforming it if I'm throwing a knob on. Flange on the lid, no gallery on the pots.

 

This. But if you'd like to continue using the pot as a chuck, use thin plastic, paper, or some sort of release like talc or corn starch in between the lid and the pot to prevent "sticking."

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I have always used the pot to trim the lid, but sometimes trim it with the GG, as others have said.

A nicely fitting lid is important, so sometimes I wii recenter the lid upside down to trim the galley.

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I throw my lids upside down off the hump.  So when i need to trim them i trim the tops.  I can either set it on the pot its going on, or set it on the wheel head and trim normally.

 

If i need to fit a lid to a pot,  i generally trim the galley of the pot to fit the lid.  Easier to center the pot than the upside down lid.

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I like to throw the lid off the hump upside down, or as a bowl shape if larger.  I roughly size it to the pot using calipers while throwing and cut the lid off and set it aside to firm some.  Then I either throw a ring of clay, or a hump of clay to hold the lid while trimming to fit and for shape.  I dry up the outside of the ring or hump with a heat gun, and set in the lid and trim.  I usually don't have any problem with the lid sticking. 

 

In a workshop with Fong Choo, he threw off the hump quite a bit, and would put Saran wrap on the hump so the hump could stay fresh, and still the lid wouldn't stick.  It works as well as my method, but I don't keep Saran wrap in my studio.

 

My favorite lid making is to close the vessel and use a pop sickle stick to depress the side where I want my lid and pot to separate.  When the depressions is just so, I dry up and firm up the area with the heat gun.  Then I carefully cut the bottom of the depression with the needle tool.  The top part is the lid, and will drop into the pot opening.  A little trimming of pot and lid makes it all fit up nicely, and get rids of any sloppy, wet, clay.  Here Bill Van Gilder demonstrates the method:

 

 

 

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

John- Thanks for the video!  I'd like to try a few that way.  Anyone else notice his "rib" was a credit card?  Awsome!

 

I have a couple of ex-credit cards, each corner has been radiused to a different ???? what's the word?  roundedness will have to do for now.

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I have tried Mark Peters' drop lids...loads of fun, and it works, but naturally not as easy as he makes it looks.  Well, for that matter, neither was the grooved pot method on the Van Gilder video.  Sigh.  Everything just seems to take practice.  Darn.

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I throw the lids upside down off the hump, and set up both pot gallery and lid rim with a heat gun to the point where they won't mar each other. I leave a large-ish wad of clay at the lid cutoff, and dry the lid on the pot. If you measure accurately, you have no fit issues due to shrinkage or warping. The cutoff holds more moisture in the centre. When the cutoff is set up to soft leather hard, I carve off the excess, and use the rest to throw a knob using very little water. I usually tap centre it right on the wheel head. If I botch a knob, I can trim the lid smooth and throw another separately and attach.

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The one piece drop lid has been going on for years. I think I saw my first one in an old Ceramics Monthly magazine. Then later one in an old issue of Pottery Making magazine. Now remember folks, when I say old, I have been reading over 40 years of the one, and the other since it came out. At any rate, I have been throwing these drop lids on the closed form for years and all sorts of ideas. One old idea was a potpourri/scented oil pot that used a candle in a tower in the bottom with a container of the drop lid type on top. The lid would be perforated so that the odors of heating the contents would come into the room, and the cat could not get to it to get sick!  Sold a lot of them at Penn State in the 90's.

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