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Drying Bowls - Rim Up Or Rim Down


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I don't even remember when someone advised me that flipping bowls so that the rim is on a flat surface, while drying,  would reduce the amount of warping...but it is a practice that I still follow.  I keep seeing studio images with drying shelves full of bowls, and the bowls are resting on their feet with the rims upright.

 

OK...so, here are my questions:

  1. Is there any validity to the claim that drying bowls with the rim down reduces warping?
  2. Is there some point in the drying process where flipping bowls over evens-out the drying?
  3. Is the practice/preference more dependent on clay choice (i.e. porcelain vs stoneware) and/or size of the bowl?
  4. If you talk to your bowls, what do they say is their preferred drying position (its OK if you don't speak bowl) :wacko: .

-Paul

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I thought it was more the uneven drying of the top vs the bottom that caused warping. Things shrinking unevenly across the piece. I do flip my work to help drying once they firm up enough. I do press down slightly if the rim is warped to shape it against the flat board. Then once the base has mostly dried up I wrap them up for a day to allow things to even out, at this point they get stored indefinitely till I turn them. Spray of water when need

 

My bowls are stoneware so they tell me not to worry too much, whatever mistakes I make they try and help me. If my bowls are porcelain then they have nervous breakdowns every second  :angry: my porcelain stays in the bag nice and quiet :D

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i use small Duron bats and throw dry and thinly leaving the foot almost trimmed once it leaves the wheelhead.  they stay on the bat until they dry enough to separate from it.  then they are trimmed and turned upside down on drywall to expose the bottom to dry them.

 

if i have made lots at one sitting, they might spend the night still on the small square bats but inside plastic grocery bags.  in the morning or whenever i returned, they were uncovered, slipped, carved and trimmed. somewhere in this step they pop off the bat.  no warping.  put upside down on old wire refrigerator shelves for final drying and to get them out of the main studio.  when enough are ready they are hot waxed, glazed and fired.

 

those small bats are great, i had a 4 foot by 8 foot piece of Duron cut into 5 inch squares.  do the math.  had to give half away so i could store the rest.

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I have done it both ways but generally after trimming flip the bowl back to its foot and dry upright.

If they are outside drying in a breeze I will put them rim down.This is for larger bowls not cereal bowls.

Mark

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Just finished throwing a few bowls yesterday. I even left one, last of day, right on the wheel head to stiffen through the night. This morning it is 67F but humid, went out to check on pots from yesterday, casserole sides and base, 5# wide bowl on wheel head, 10 mugs sitting on drywall ware board. Mug bases were stiff, and rims were nearly leather hard, flipped them over onto rims. Bowl sitting on wheel head, rim is stiff, cut from head, and flipped onto head, wheel off! Casserole walls cheese hard, cut from wooden bat, placed on separate base, ovaled it, marked outer edge, lifted off and on base added magic water with toothbrush working up good slurry, added walls and ribbed onto base, trimmed outside excess and place clean bat on top to flip whole mess over onto rim. Bottom was still a little damp, but firm enough to hold shape. Once this dries to leather hard I will scrape edges, but later today I will re-flip it and lay a decorated slab over rim slumped to form the lid. This is my first attempt at an oval casserole, so I am learning as I go. Does not seem to be much of a problem.

 

So from this, yes I flip, to dry evenly, and to protect the rim, and make certain rim is even flat. Sometimes I even thumb an extra flair into a cheese hard rim at this stage. I like bowls that have larger rims that flair out to allow for easy lifting out of hot oven, or hold in arms while mixing. this always seems to allow missed flour or such to hit the bowl instead of the table! :huh:

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I make a lot of bowls. I always flip my bowls as soon as they are safe to flip. If not the rim dries way to fast unless you cover them, but if you cover them it takes ages for the bottom to dry and I like to trim my pieces same day. 

 

If I am not trimming a bowl on the bottom, say if its a flat bottom bowl trimmed on the wheel, then I just leave it base down for a day then flip to dry to go to bisque. 

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Hey,

I trim everything right side up. If I trim a foot ring then

I have to flip them over. Since they are trimmed thinner, and still

leather hard, I leave them upside down and move the bat to keep from

Grasping and warping the vessel. Sometimes when vessels are large, I center

the bat they're on, onto another bat that is fastened to the

wheel. The weight holds everything in place.

Things like platters and bowls are dried upside down,

and most cups, mugs, steins, and pitchers are allowed to dry

right side up. I'm trying to remember, but I think I was told

yrs ago, that the right way to dry was upside down, and if not

mistaken, read the same thing in a pottery book, which backed it up.

Because the top of the vessel is often out of center with the base I start

trimming the rim first then re-center as I trim the shoulder and body, and re-center again towards the foot. To trim the foot I take the long triangle trimming tool and rock it back and forth against the bat and that defines the foot, serves

as a speed bump for the glaze, plus gives something to hold on to while dipping

into the glaze.

See ya,

Alabama

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Pres, you gotta love it when the weather cooperates, with your production, and things dry according to your schedule.  The Winter months don't exactly do that here.  

 

I leave things on the bats, until they stiffen  enough, for me to flip them.  Then I let the bottoms dry a bit, before trimming.  After that, I tend to leave them on their rims, until firing.  Mugs may get set right side up, after attaching handles, but then they are usually inverted for signing, and left that way.

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Guest JBaymore

I throw them loose and 'off center'...and hope they warp some more.  ;)

 

If you don't want them to warp..... a lot depends on the particular clay body as to how even it dries.

 

best,

 

..............john

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I don't even remember when someone advised me that flipping bowls so that the rim is on a flat surface, while drying,  would reduce the amount of warping...but it is a practice that I still follow.  I keep seeing studio images with drying shelves full of bowls, and the bowls are resting on their feet with the rims upright.

 

OK...so, here are my questions:

  1. Is there any validity to the claim that drying bowls with the rim down reduces warping?
  2. Is there some point in the drying process where flipping bowls over evens-out the drying?
  3. Is the practice/preference more dependent on clay choice (i.e. porcelain vs stoneware) and/or size of the bowl?
  4. If you talk to your bowls, what do they say is their preferred drying position (its OK if you don't speak bowl) :wacko: .

-Paul

1-I throw bowls up to 8 #s on plaster bats so they dry well on bottoms as well as  lips-when I throw larger bowls on plastic bats I have to flip them to dry the bottoms

2-Yes on no plaster bats when they are dry enough to flip-this will even out the drying-no with plaster bats

3-Not for me porcelain or stoneware same treatment

4-I do not speak to pots-I;m not that far gone yet.I just whisper to them

Mark

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I like warping, flaws of all sorts, alterations, mis-handling, rule-breaking, visible process markings, many things that perfected, practiced, well-educated, trained draftsmanship cringes at, BUT only when intentional...not when as the result of inadequacy. The "flaw" may look the same, but the intention makes all the difference (to me). If two bowls have the same crumpled rim, it matters to me whether I put it there or whether it collapsed because I was not attending properly. The former gets to live, the latter mercifully dispatched to the recover-later bucket. I tend dry slow and protected, unless I want the vagaries of chance involved. Rims to the bottom, often on a thin piece of foam. 

 

Usually the bowl speaks to me before I can talk to it, but we tend to have pretty decent dialogues once it speaks up.

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I always speak to my pots, especially jars and vase forms. Something about the echo timbre that tells me if the pot is thick or thin, or if there is enough expansion in the belly or can I chance a little more. It works for me anyway.

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I always ring bisquefire pieces. It tells me if there is a hairline crack in the ware. Over the years I have found cracks that would be impossible to see. Sometimes a pot will be knocked when green, or get uneven expansion in firing and get a fine hairline. Ringing the piece after bisque will expose this by a double sound. I hope this make sense to you, but if you try it you will eventually find a cracked piece.

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Yup, sound finds a crack pretty easily once you know the sound!

 

Honestly, I've been throwing really thin pieces lately, so much so it's hard to flip them without warping! I flip once the rim is firm enough to take it so the foot can catchup...I'll cover the top half while the bottom dries a bit if it's hot or the thin wall gets too far ahead of the untrimmed bottom.

 

I was wondering this myself, generally when I've seen other people post about throwing and trimming, they show work on its base and I do tend to dry rim down to help let the bottom catch up on drying!

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florence w, on 29 May 2015 - 3:52 PM, said:snapback.png

Does anyone have an idea why a crack would develop in a foot ring on a bowl?  The crack didn't show until it was glaze fired. 

 

Can you post a picture?  That would help diagnose the problem.

 

Sorry, no, I wasn't able to get a photo that would show the crack.  (My camera is a simple SLR.)  The crack runs from the flat of the foot, diagonally down into the foot, is about 3 inches long, circling around the foot into the glaze.  There is no crack inside the bowl.  The clay is 181 fired to cone 6 or a bit more. 

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