Roberta12

i have used rio to color the clay i used for a birdbath.   it was years ago and i just tossed a bunch of rio into some soft clay and wedged it in.   made places for the birds to stand in a very large slab  that i hung over a trash can on cloth.  came out great, the birds loved it while it lived.   i went to texas and heard it would freeze that night at home so i asked my daughter to bring it in.   she didn't.

I hate wedging, but this makes it tolerable. Fresh snowfall last night.

The best advice comes from people with years of first hand experience with selling. I have seen lots of second hand advice being peddled, and it always come across to me as "this person has clearly never tried the advice their peddling." Second hand advice is always over-simplified, as if the person thinks there are formulas and paved roads to follow. Those don't exist! 

You may way to expand your sales beyond online to gain traction sooner.

I LOVE MY MINIVAN!!!!!!!! It is so functional, not just for a pottery business. Some people thought I was strange for wanting to get one, but I was like “look at that cargo space sign me up!!!!!” 
It helps that most of my friends are either potters or art fair artists, and in this subculture a minivan is considered sexy. 

You can find alot on DPDT switchs on You Tube as well. Never bought into the lefty throwing direction myself
as Neil said
(Throwing direction is not a matter of being left or right handed. Western cultures typically throw counter-clockwise, and eastern cultures typically work clockwise. I recommend she learn to work counter-clockwise as she may encounter wheels that only go that direction if she attends workshops. Plus most instructional videos will be done that way.)

Hi Roberta, I believe the thicker the better yes, probably I am using too little glaze, maybe combined with the fact that I did not use cones so I can not confirm temperature it gives me an idea of both the problems 
Thanks!

@Chilly asked a great question.  They do look underfired.  On the Mayco site they do recommend a thick application. Perhaps thicker is better with these glazes?
Roberta

Are you using cones to verify the temperature of your kiln?  My guess is they are underfired.

Here's the results of my various tests with this slip clay I found.  I tested:
Test tiles are Standard 630 fired hot cone 6 oxidation.
various levels of RIO from 2% to 20%
frits 3124 and 3195 from 5-20%
spodumene, whiting, gerstley, rutile 10-20%
copper carb, cobalt oxide and carb, chrome oxide, yellow ochre
Most of the tiles were either chocolate brown or mahogany brown, depending on which base slip I used.  There were a few that are interesting.  The ones with whiting turned out a silky butterscotch color, the one with whiting and cobalt(242 in the pic) breaks glossy black on the edges and is an interesting shade of grayish/tan/brown where thick and the one with speckles is gerstley borate at 10%.  Also, there are a couple that are quite close and could be a very nice gloss black if I tweaked the cobalt/iron levels a bit I think.
I haven't done any durability testing as of yet.  I think I may try some triaxial blends or currie grids with whiting, cobalt, gerstley to see if there are more interesting things.
 

One more pic of the GB tile as I ran over my 1MB limit.

I’ve never done it personally, but I’ve seen tutorials about painting parts (or all) of the plaster mould with a layer of coloured slip and letting it set up a little before pouring the “main” casting slip. It allows you to just use a coloured version of the slipcasting body of your choice to decorate, and it’s thoroughly integrated into the piece. 

I'm by nature a little suspicious but this seems like a post to get people to click that link. Are you legit or just pitching your website? 
looks like they took it down, was a post here going to a link

great news that you will be close to bailey.   maybe you can then change your location below your avatar to a real place.
to learn to throw a cylinder by pulling toward the center, think you are making a flower pot upside down.   always complete every pull without changing the pressure.  do not lift your hand until you reach the very top of the clay and then hold a finger down on top for at least a few revolutions.  your hands are made of steel, rigid, not floppy.
unless you are not opening at the very center, pulling walls toward the center should become easier with practice.   remember, you are learning a skill, not producing work.
if you smack down  and stretch the wet clay onto a piece of 5/8 drywall, you might dry it out enough to use the same day.  

Hey Pyewackette,  I reuse   plastic bags from the vegetable aisle, and I find they're great - softer and easier to manipulate than grocery bags but not as flimsy as dry cleaner bags.  When one gets a hole I put a piece of tape on it.  I also cut them open to use flat.    Be sure however that they're not the  compostable bags like Trader Joe's uses.  Those do break down great in the compost pile  I use them with a little newspaper in the bottom for my compostable stuff.   But clay dries out quickly in them.    I'm sure they'd be useful in some ways but not for very slow clay drying.  Good luck!

Interesting fact: once a plaster form has thoroughly dried, after the initial pouring, re wetting it, and allowing it to dry a second time, will completely open the pores contained within. This is probably inconvenient, regarding a wedging table surface, but it would enable you to take the utmost advantage of the plasters aborbing capabilities.
The degree to which the plaster slab no longer can absorb water is dependent upon the clay you use. If your clay contains soluble salts, sodium silicate or barium carbonate, for instance, it may slow down with age, but most likely your clay doesn't so you can expect many years of use.  
As for drying a plaster form: heat is good but air movement is better. Too much heat, above 120 for instance, can start the breakdown process, too much air movement, has no bad impact at all. Put a fan on your plaster slabs and they should dry much sooner than simply letting the still air dry them. 

This may be of interest to you. Not scientific nor entirely about bubbles but an interesting way to dial in best clarity. Just some studio tested methodology which focuses in on the perfect silica and alumina levels for best clarity. Anyway, other interesting aspects as Sue seeks some practical ways to obtain the clearest. https://suemcleodceramics.com/getting-clarity-with-clear-glazes/

I don't think they are talking about organics in the bisque, most are burnt off pretty easily just the sulphur stays around. I feel it's pretty relevant to getting rid of glaze bubbles  the question is do I really have to get rid of bubbles you can only see through a microscope when the glaze layer is thin? Probably not but I want to see if I can.
I gave up trying to make money from my own pottery long ago and instead have fun testing and experimenting. I am not even sure how relevant my fritware tests were to any of my work but I enjoyed doing it. 

If you’re finding your plaster slabs are saturated and you’re in a humid area (England, ahem), put your slabs next to your kiln when it fires to take advantage of the heat. 

My reclaim slabs are ~2" thick, about same as yours.
It does take several days for them to dry out! I load them up with as much reclaim as I can heap on top without it oozing over the edges.
I've found it helps to prop up the slabs so air can circulate underneath, for the plaster will absorb water up to the point where they are saturated, then they can take more as moisture evaporates off the exposed edges and underneath. The reclaim dries quickly at first, then slower as the plaster becomes saturated. If I had extra plaster slabs, I'd rotate the reclaim to dry slabs!
My slabs have been in service for over four years now, seems they work just as well as when new.
They're much lighter once fully dried out - they don't feel as cool when fully dry, and there's the mineral fuzz - efflorescence.
Eventually, the plaster may get crumbly and it will be time to make new ones? That's what I've read here somewhere...

No new questions in the pool for the QotW, so I will pose a new one.
I have been amazed lately of the distances that some of you cover when doing wholesale/retail and shows in general. It would be interesting to know how far you travel for these sales. If you have any stories about these travels, please include them also. 
QotW: How much area/distance do you cover when selling your ceramics?
My history of sales is pretty simple. For years I sold at festivals and other venues in Blair and Center county in PA. I was frequent enough that folks returned to my booth after buying in previous years just to buy from me. At the same time though, I had and ongoing sales outlet with a religious group that needed chalices for meeting and ceremonies. Later they came to need patens also as they created an award in honor of one of their founders that led to me selling @20 communion sets a year and sending them to seminary schools all over the nation. Lots of work, and lots of shipping/ handling problems to be solved and I continue to do so. I have now created these for over 40 years. I have also sent some as far as Europe, Australia, and South Korea. 
best,
Pres

@Jeff Longtin, type of wax resist makes a big difference in how well this works. Use a water based resist like Forbes, the ones with oil don't work nearly so well. 

You can get underglazes to bleed by using a fluid glaze overtop. Example by Dawn Candy below. Gravity helps. Not quite the look of your drawings but maybe something to consider.

Credit to Dawn Candy 

Laguna gives COE figures for their claybodies, I realize they probably are not super accurate but they would probably be okay to look at for a ballpark range. Frost is posted at 6.99 which is really high compared to most of their claybodies which in theory should mean it does not require a low COE glaze. Also, the ingredients used to make it are minimal, halloysite, nepheline syenite, silica and bentonite. I don't recall reading anything lately that said those materials have had any major chemical changes.
Could you post a picture of one of the mugs with the "Strange crazing, like a single almost stress looking crack down the side..." and the glaze recipes you used on those. And then a recipe for one of the glazes that had regular crazing. 
Have you contacted Laguna with the batch number and asked them about the issues and if there have been any changes to the claybody? I'ld send them some photos of the cracks and crazing along with corresponding recipes also and see what they have to say.

@Roberta12
As they say, check anywhere lead can be so walls, blinds, surfaces kids can get their mouth on. For me it’s inside lid and sidewalls. 3m instant test instructions here https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/815979O/3mtm-leadchecktm-tri-fold-brochure-08-28-2012.pdf