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Fall To Winter Projects


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Temperatures here have been dipping into the lower 40's at night, and the shop is in need of heat early mornings. As Winter makes its way, I will be finishing up the chalices and patens for next Spring, finishing Christmas gifts, and completing some Canister sets. When Winter make it here, shop will be closed down til Spring. Electric is just too expensive to heat a brick garage for sub freezing temps.

 

What will you be doing for Fall, and Winter?

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Continuing to work. Luckily, my basement studio, while cool in the Winter, doesn't require any additional cost to heat. There is actually no real heating mechanism down there, but all the radiator lines run overhead, throughout, so there is the heat from that.

 

Luckily, I can still work, as I'm not as good as planning ahead as you are Pres. I'll be making Christmas gifts right up until a week before Christmas.

 

Currently, I'm planning to make some items for benefit, for one of our current graduates. But before that, I have to use my work area to stain and reglaze some windows.... before the temps continue to drop.

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Pres,

 

Several relatives here have put wood burning stoves into the garage/workshop.  I live in Virginia where there is an abundance of free fire wood if your willing to do the work. Is this a possibility for you?  If a tree is ever cut down in my neighborhood several people descend on it and haul it off.  I have a few friends that entirely heat there homes with wood.

 

Have you ever thought of doing some small hand building projects on the kitchen table.  Then storing them in the garage till spring?  That is how I started out.

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Chantay,

 

That's a good solution for Pres, but as I understand it, prepping wood for a stove is like having a part time job. Hauling the wood, chopping it, stacking it, then consistently feeding the fire. It's like having a kid!.... No I am not saying that I chop and stack children, just that there is a lot of work involved to have them.

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I have brought a wheel into the house in the past, and thrown for a while in the Winter, but really don't like doing it. As to the handbuilding, a possibility. Wood stove is something I consider, but space in the garage is limited with the two kilns, the wedging table, work table, glaze mixing area, and three storage areas. I have a ready source for firewood as I would be able to bring down from my parents homestead that I am partner in, acres of wooded area. Space though, major problem.

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I like a pellet stove-more efficient burn and very little ash-cost of a ton pallet of chips is $250-lasts us 1 -1/2 winters which are very mild here.Wood is a back breaker and way you stack it. done with wood for house heat.

Now as to projects I have my x-mas season dead ahead so throw a few tons of clay for sure and spin it into gold-as to the winter-I'm off for 6 weeks doing paperwork and relaxing whatever that is?

Mark

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All my outlets want work to sell for x-mss . For potters this is the busy season for sales but you need a boat load of work to make great sales.

If I'm not selling I'm making or vice versa.Dropped off 4 large gallery pottery orders in last two weeks and still have more to do.

Mark

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Excellent chalices Pres.  I've helped students make some, but oddly enough, I've never made one myself.  

 

I've heard you mention making the chalices and patens before.  It recently occurred to me, how many churches can there be around you, that there is a constant demand for those?

 

Babs, in regards to the clay pumpkins, I found this:

 

 

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Thanks Benzine.

I have made one pumpkin of clay in my life. I took a large lump of clay, placed it in a plastic shopping bag, screwed hte bag up really tight so that it dug into the clay. Flattened the bottom, pressed firmly on the centre top. Left it in the bag a while, peeled the bag off, cut the "pumpkin shaped clay mass about 3/4 way up with a notch in it. This became the lid. I then proceeded to carve out the inside, much as you would a Halloween pumpkin. It was thus formed into a casserole/ soup tureen.! Very effective but could not produce them en masse! It was like a variety of pumpkin in Aus, Queensland Blue, flattish with many lobes.

Might be one for those students who are finished before you turn around :)

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Thanks for posting the pumpkin video. I was trying to make one yesterday. Total failure.

 

Yes, the wood for heating is a lot of work. Several friends went in together and bought a gas powered log splitter. It's a two man operation and looks dangerous. Part is a cost issue. My electric bill is about $350 a month when it gets really cold, this with a new unit. They do all the work in teams during the summer. Most keep a year ahead on the wood so it's really dry. I have an endless source of ash.

 

Pres, your chalice are very nice. How tall do they range?

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Fired chalices are usually 9-12 inches tall. I make about 20 sets each year that go to colleges all over the US for new ordinands from seminary schools.  It is a graduation award for Scholarship, service and other criteria.  I enjoy doing it and do the shipping to the schools myself.  I have had orders from as far as Italy and Australia, they must have gotten my name mixed up with someone else! :unsure:

 

I started doing these for a local pastor that was involved in a national group. First one were about 6-8 inches tall. Things have certainly changed in 30 years.

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We heat our house completely with wood and have since we built it 30 years ago.  This house is built very tight and heats easily.  I grew up in a huge old 1700s farm house which my parents also heated with wood, so I also know the drawbacks to heating with wood.  Good insulation is key.  I have stayed in homes that use other kinds of heat and they are COLD compared to ours.  Most nights our living area is 75 degrees and our house holds a pretty constant temp of 68 to 75 with little stove tending.  We don't heat our bedrooms but all other areas are toasty.  Personally I like the workout we get from stacking wood and bringing it in the house.  

 

Winter is usually a productive time for me pottery wise because the wood stove is in my studio space and the dogs and I love working on nasty cold days, in the comfort of our cozy space.  So, I will be cranking up the music and throwing pots when I'm not teaching school, cutting hair, or cross country skiing/mountain biking depending on snowfall.  Oh and I love using my kiln in the winter, extra heat :)  I hope to be able to stash away some work for a new venture.  I was recently juried into the League of NH Craftsmen and I hope to have enough stock so that I can participate in the annual August Craftsmen's Fair put on by the League.  

 

Oh and that wood stove really dries out the work if you need to speed the process along!

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Winter projects (for me) mean one of two things:
1. Working at the wheel with an electric space heater in the near vicinity
2. Working on a lap board doing small, handbuilding projects with my feet up, in front of the fireplace.

 

Trust me...you have a better than 50/50 chance of which I enjoy more.

-Paul

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On the things I'm trying to do this winter, one of them is working on the retail thing more seriously. Longer note's worth there.

 

One of these events happend last Friday at a "Gallery Night" event held here in Madison twice a year. Very well attended by the wandering public and fantastic weather. I set up on this *beautiful* Thomas Stuart kickwheel--not mine, and what a beauty in terms of momentum--for demonstration throwing of those pumpkins. Besides precious interactions with curious, engaged 9 year old boys (great little aesthetic helper, that one), I made 5 small to big porcelain pumpkins. The vine top and the hole punch left people breathless--I had no idea how worried people were until I heard the gasp when I stuck the needle in! I turned to look and there were 20 horrified faces off to my left. I was throwing with domestic porcelain (EPK) just cuz I had it, which is soft, soft, and flabby, but it holds the flowing textural lines of things that grow nicely. (I'm glad I didn't read the concerns about difficulty before I did it, because your tales might have swayed me not to do it at all, LOL.) It was great fun, and if I could spend all of my retail events throwing instead of standing, I'd be a retail queen by now.

 

To others, give it a go--very fun to make. Thanks for posting the video! Now, if someone could just post a video on how to sculpt nude figures... :)

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Warmer weather here, and warm in the shop, so I have been throwing larger bowls, 10# my elbows are quite dirty(opening up), but having lots of fun. Two came out of last bisque, two more to trim today, tomorrow is evening bowling and good weather so I might get a few more thrown and some glazing done.

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  • 2 months later...

Update on a few of the ideas about heating the shop. Seems there is code against using a wood stove inside the borough! Second thought is that after talking to a local restaurant owner, propane is very plausible to heat the shop, and cheaper. He says that for <$500 I could put a tank in the back yard with a heater in the shop that would control the cold. Hmmm this makes me wonder about propane firing a kiln on down the road. Possibilities.  Oh yeah, the restaurant owner is a Fire Marshall for the area, so he may know what he is talking about, plus the fact that he used propane for his restaurant.

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Pres the propane heated shop spound like a good idea-its good to have a heated year around space for clay work. Also gas kiln really will expand your experiences.Knowing the fire marshall may get you approved without a ton of red tape.

Mark

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Propane is a great option.  I ran a split from the line going to the house to supply a large hanging propane heater in the shop building.  I keep the temp at the lowest setting on the thermostat (keeps things from freezing) and just crank it up to about 60 degrees when I am in there.  A year later I added a second split that I can attach a flexible hose to run a raku kiln.  Firing the Raku kiln of a 300 gallon tank is much nicer than a 20# tank.  You might think about adding a split from the beginning for a later line to a gas kiln. 

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