Roberta12

@Bam2015 I like what @GEP said about stylistically original, and what @Kelly in AK said about making pots that are beautiful and interesting to the artist and what is pleasing to hold and touch.  @Mark C. comments about changing up what was pleasing to his eye and what actually was selling.  I will add that you have to know your venue and customer base.  I live in an area where function is the key.  I have had people pick up a bowl and ask what they could use it for.  It's not that they don't know what a bowl is used for, it's that they wonder if there is a specific function for a handmade bowl.  I always try to have an answer for that.  (mashed potatoes, oatmeal, applesauce), but my customers like color and pattern.  Maybe that's because what I like to make.  Circling back to what @Kelly in AK said.  You have to have your heart in what you make.   
 

I have a hard time imagining that best sellers could be ranked based on (implied? perceived? known?) preference for certain surface decoration and/or colors.  So many choices, so many makers, so many buyers, so many locations!! I'm now very interested to see what sellers here have to say! Also whether there is any insight as to whether location, time of year, sub-populations in the region, comments from buyers, other variables, etc. seems to influence what sells best. 

Agree that everyday functional pottery sells much better than sculptural or decorative ceramics. But “functional” alone will not automatically sell, there are plenty of functional wares out there that don’t sell well. It also needs to be pleasing to touch and hold it. And it needs to be correctly priced. Not too high OR too low. And it helps a great deal if it is stylistically original, i.e. customer does not look at it and think “I see a lot of pottery that looks just like this.” 

And then use the pots.
 
High boron in this glaze? Large amount of Gerstley Borate?

My “for what it’s worth” contribution to this discussion: 
The glaze I use the most is based on a MC6G semi-matte base, which I altered with talc and calcium carb to make it more matte. At one point, I calculated out the unity formula, and it was well outside of the range that MC6G recommends. But I’ve been using it for going on 20 years, and it has been rock solid. Even in cases where a customer brought back some 10+ year old bowls, where the glossy liner glaze was visibly losing its shine. These customers are heavy dishwasher users, and again these pots had been in almost daily use for 10+ years, but the matte glaze on the outside was exactly like day 1. 
Unity formulas, flux ratios, boron charts are all useful guidelines, but glaze chemistry has far more variables than us mere humans can test. No substitute for first hand experience. “Melt and see” is still an indispensable mindset. 

I'd tried extended bisque fire hold (~1500°F) for red, dark brown and black clays I was trying out (a few years ago), where the idea was to thoroughly "burn out" the stuff that will  burn out*. The hold did seem to help with the black clay, however, the main problem I was having with the red clay, fizzy bubbling, was most likely associated with too much heatwork.
I'd set up a powered kiln vent at about the same time.
Any road, my observation (notations were helpful here) was that random pits were greatly reduced in the white, buff, and other red** clays.
My guess there is that random larger bits/chunks of stuff that otherwise wouldn't completely decompose (and hence, produce gas in the glaze fire) in a regular bisque fire get more, or even fully burned out with the hold. I've left the hold in ever since.
I'm fairly sure I got the idea from reading GlazeNerd posts, thanks Nerd!
 
*The black clay, in particular, could bloat where the clay was even a bit thicker.
**I'm using a different vendor's red clay now, which isn't as sensitive to firing over cone five; it also throws better and is less prone to cracking during drying.

I’m currently in an interesting position of having to revise most of the 10 shop  glazes at a new teaching studio that weren’t properly tested before large batches were made. The person who chose them quit, or he’d have been fired. The glazes were all chosen entirely by the numbers: they all fall within the Stull recommendations, and don’t have weird variances in UMF. Most of them have easily traced provenance and have good reputations.  But one failed an overnight vinegar test, and three more require weird bucket flocculation acrobatics that are deeply impractical to maintain in a teaching studio. One is pretty pricey because it’s half frit. 3 of them contain gerstley borate, with no attempt to reformulate. They were all mixed to the exact same specific gravity. 4 of them ran like a track star because of that. Only 2 out of the 10 need no immediate work. The person who put this glaze stable together read alllllll the technical manuals, but had zero practical experience. 
But I was also taught glaze chemistry (*points flashlight under chin*)  in the Before Times when there was No Digitalfire! (Woooooo!)  Kidding aside. We were subjected to line blending every material in a chosen base glaze just to see what happened.  My left eye still twitches thinking about that level of abject boredom, and I think the prof may have secretly hated us all. I remember thinking at the time that we were all probably reinventing the proverbial wheel, and that a reference text of some kind HAD to be out there somewhere to narrow things down. I am deeply, deeply grateful that glaze calc software exists to eliminates a lot of that kind of needless pedantry, and material waste. 
Ideally glaze calc and empirical testing should be used together. 

And here we come to it, the rub. 
Glazy has been a godsend to me, and I’ve yet to see anything bursting that bubble. I learned glaze chemistry and calculation thirty years ago in college, and used it loosely, only to evaluate recipes. Now, as then, I rely heavily on materials knowledge and gross ratios to come up with what I believe will work. Glazy allows me to put my guesses into a context of what has worked in other places for other people, and reduces (not eliminates) the testing. For materials that don’t have a published chemical analysis, or materials that have the same name but varying compositions (this talc vs. that talc, “ potash spar,” “boron frit,” or my local clay) there’s still guesswork. 
It takes much less effort to arrive at a data point that before would have been tedious to find, even with previous glaze calculation software. Glazy rests on the shoulders of everything that came before it and I don’t discount that, but we live in good times. Three cheers for Derek Au. 
I, like @Roberta12, look for that sweet spot on the UMF chart, nudge my glazes towards it and wait and see how the pots look after a few years in my kitchen. The only faster way to test seems to be alternating baths in strong alkali and acid (good old lye and that potent 30% vinegar @PeterH mentioned in another post). Like the weatherman, we haven’t arrived at perfect prediction, but it’s a lot better than it used to be. 

20 oz mug, 1 lb  (base isn't as narrow as it looks in the picture)

The Bright Angle, in Ashville, NC might be someone to call? You might also try KleinReid in New York.

Drop and hold seems to be working/helping in glaze fires for me as well.
I'm also holding in bisque fire, ~1500°F for an hour, powered kiln vent on throughout, which also seems to help.
"Seems" on account of variables, aye.
Some of the clays I've tried are a bit more sensitive to too much heatwork; some are very sensitive to too much heatwork. 

I am not a hold person as to me it simply adds heatwork. In a practical sense there are folks who fire one cone lower but add a hold to get to the next cone heatwork without the peak temperature. In that case firing to cone five with a fifteen to twenty minute hold often gets one to cone six. (Usually verified with cones)
Why do that? Some glazes do not like higher peak temperatures. Some underglazes change color significantly with peak temperature. It is a pretty functional way to fire a cone to two cones max higher without hitting the actual peak temperature. 
Firing higher or for longer has never healed pinholes for me, often made them worse. Drop some temperature and hold however has helped on s some of my pinhole situations.
whatever works for you and your desired glaze results is likely the best answer. Whatever is done, I strongly suggest  always nice to have cones in place so you genuinely know how much heatwork was done. As to suggested time, 15-20 minutes generally gets you to the next cone.

I tried to explode a cup in the microwave. The test was to see if a cup with water absorbed into the body would explode when microwaved. My cup got really hot, but did not explode.
I started with two nearly identical cups made from a white stoneware with an estimated absorption of 3.7% as previously measured with test bars. Each cup has a foot ring and was glazed inside and out with a clear glaze. The foot ring and the bottom area inside the foot ring was not glazed.
One cup was set aside and was not subjected to any water.  It weighed 433.9g.
For the other cup, I kept it upside down on my desk and kept filling the area inside of the foot ring with water for a few weeks. My thought is this would simulate water absorption from being subject to multiple rounds in a dishwasher. Periodically, I would check its weight. After a couple of weeks, the water absorption stabilized and the weight of the cup went from 426.0 grams to 441.8 grams, a gain of 15.8g or about 3.7% (which matches my test bar estimate). This means it absorbed about a tablespoon of water. It did not gain any additional weight/water with more time beyond a couple of weeks.
Then, I microwaved both cups (both empty) at the same time in a 1.4kw microwave with rotating platform for 15 minutes. I very quickly measured their temperature after each minute of microwaving. The cup with absorbed water reached a maximum temperature of 433F. The cup without absorbed water maxed at 250F. Neither exploded. The cup with absorbed water crazed, but no other damage.  The cup with no absorbed water did not craze and was not damaged. The graph shows the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit over time in minutes.
After microwaving letting the cups cool, I remeasured their weight. The cup with water applied went down to 425.4g indicating that all of the water was boiled out. The cup without applied water was 425.3. After microwaving, both cups weighed a less than their original weights.
So, I was not able to explode my cup. This does not mean that your cup won't explode. This was for one particular clay and may not be representative of other clay bodies.  If others have time, it would be interesting to repeat the test with other clay bodies.
Notes: Microwaving empty pieces is not recommended because it might damage the microwave oven.  I use an old microwave that I don’t care if it breaks. I used an infrared Infrared Thermometer Temperature Gun to be able to very quickly measure the temps. If you decide to repeat this experiment, note that I got 30F difference between the top and the bottom of the cup and averaged the reading.

Any container going into your next bisque will work. I wouldn’t trust commercial terracotta, just on the basis you don’t know what temp it’ll melt at for sure. 

Calcining clay only has to get to around 1200° F, if that helps.
Tony Hansen has some good info on it if you haven’t already seen:
https://digitalfire.com/glossary/calcination

Finally a date!  Thurs Feb. 8 on CBC and CBC GEM.  Lin

Having watched his progress on Instagram, Seth Rogen is no slouch. He’s put in some serious work in the last couple of years. His fame did kickstart some things and open a bunch of doors, but he’s still got a good eye. He’s likely supposed to be the analogous body to  Kieth, but with less joyful weeping. Probably.
That said, Brendan Tang and Natalie Waddel and Robin Dupont are all freaking amazing clay artists, and if you don’t follow them on Instagram, there’s the links. Natalie’s work in person is very delicate and makes me very happy. 
As far as where to catch the show, I’d keep an eye out for wherever you watched Schitt’s Creek or Kim’s Convenience. Those were also CBC productions, and I think they licensed them on AppleTV and GooglePlay? Amazon may or may not pick it up unless it gets super popular.
 
 
 

I use the printers blankets (free/low cost/different sizes from printers) that Old Lady turned us to, as well as (depending on project/purpose) slab mats. I use drywall for ware boards. I use a canvas covered large cement paver for some things. like cut & slam wedging.

Can they have an unglazed bottom or foot ring to allow for display? If not, how about casting a sacrificial ring or tab (maybe 3/16” diameter eyelet) into the bottom, suspend while firing, grind off after finished and finish the remaining dot with paint, or a bigger dot and insert logo?  
Just thinking …….

Whether or not it will deform depends on how thick the piece is and how soft your porcelain gets in the firing. Lots of variables there, so your best bet is to test it.

It's the grinding down of the blank going around the curves that I'm wondering about. I think it would be a lot more accurate if I had a jig I could clamp the blank to before grinding it, would help with angle too. There are also ones on aliexpress but I wonder about the quality of those. Hsin-Chuen Lin sells some also, they are all pretty close or the same shape. Makes me question if they are all getting the blanks then sharpening and finishing them. 

So I had decided to buy a sample blank and try grinding the cutting edge so I contacted the supplier I linked above and it turns out shipping is $25-. I don't think it's worth $50- USD for an experiment so I cancelled the order. 
I did go ahead and order the one below from Aliexpress. (4 styles available) Given there are not a lot of suppliers and the styles are the same or very similar I thought it was worth a try. I'll do a follow up here once it arrives and I have a chance to try it out. (no affiliation with either company)

Why not try making ceramic handles? I think it might be easier than making wood handles...

Yes I have made my own over 30 +years-I have deer  hair (and have some elk to try) but most are made from skunk tails. These are cut off road kills and aired out for a year outside hanging. Then I use bamboo from our property-which is cut and dried in the right lengths. I wrap the hairs tight with a string around them and the end is covered in waterproof epoxy and the string is put thru the center and forms a loop on top to hang brush. I have also just expoxeyed the hairs in without the thru string and still use a string loop in small hole glued in tio for hanging as they dry best hanging. I have shown thse in photos before here. These brushes have lasted many decades of heavy use. The skunk hair is course and very durable. Deer hair is finer. I use them on glaze days -at least 6 of them for underglazing.

Just forget about small exposure and now start to work smarter with a mask and wet mop .
I have been a full timer for 50 years and for the 1st 15-20 years was exposed badly . I mixed clay in collage and it was in the early 770s (no masks) -had to go outside to breath from clay dust.
I swept dust for deacads before useing a wet mop. Mixed clay and glazed in large amounts. In the 90s I caught on some to dust.'
Now for the record every 10 years now I get a lung difusion test that measures how elastic your lungs are (in asbestos or silicosis or any lung disease )your lungs become less elastic and this test can show you that you are headed that way. If you get diagnosed with any lung desease you are already toast so this test gives one a heads up. I have three such tests now under my belt.
I also have a central vac heps system in studio and a air handlers that is also hepa. I hepa vac the dust and do not sweep it. The vac is outside of building.
Give up greenware sanding and use a wet sponge-think no dust
you will be fine moving forward-welcome to the forum