JohnnyK

The summer means more time growing, tending, and selling vegetables and more time doing yardwork on my 3 acres...less time in the studio...

One of the things I do when storing a bag of clay that has been opened with some of the clay removed is to put a wet piece of towel about the size of a hand towel in the bag before closing it back up. That seems to keep the clay's moisture at an adequate level during storage...

I know this will rile @Mark C. and some of the other potters, but for me it was the movie "Ghost" and not so much for Demi Moore but what she was doing with the clay...I thought at the time that it looked pretty cool what she was doing and that someday, when I retired, I would be doing that. It was the act of slapping a shapeless blob of clay onto a wheel and turning it into something useful. Each movie after that which had a throwing scene added fuel to the little fire until I did a remodeling job for an 87 year old ceramist (not a potter). While we were talking in her kitchen one day, I noticed a couple of funky mugs that she had on a shelf and she mentioned that those were the first pieces that she had made many decades before. She suggested that I take a Learning Exchange class at our local pottery supplier Alpha Fired Arts. She also asked if I might be interested in an old Cress kiln that she had wanted to get rid of because she had a newer kiln that she wanted to start using. Got it for free if I would just haul it off...which I did. I then signed up for the Beginning Pottery class which would last for 6 weeks, meeting on Thursday evenings with full studio access as long as the store was open. Since I was still working full time, I was only able to do extra time for a couple of hours each Saturday. Well, the instructor said he only expected us to finish 4 pieces during the class and was absolutely blown away when I produced more than 20. Part of the inspiration to continue was while I was working those Saturday mornings, I was sitting side by side with professionals who rented access to the studio space, equipment and kilns on site. Not too long after that, a friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in borrowing a CI wheel that he found in a barn on a piece of property that he had just bought. He said that I could keep it for as long as I wanted. I just had to clean the dirt and black widows off it. He dropped it off but it didn't have a splash guard. I ultimately fabricated my own, which turned out to be better than the original design. Then I started taking classes at a local Junior College where I increased my learning of the basics and expanded my skills, getting an A in both Ceramics I & II. All of the work that I did at Sierra College was ^10 but my kiln was only a ^6 kiln, and a tired one at that, so the work I did at home was almost all low fire. I did do a few manual ^6 firings, but decided that manual firings were not for me so I sprung for an Orton controller. With that in place the firings became a lot easier. Then I came across a Cress ^10, little used kiln that the owner who said she was a potter, but was moving and her new place didn't have the space for her kiln, decided to give up her hobby. I got the kiln for $500, but along with the kiln, I had to take what was 300 pounds of boxed dried clay. (It's surprising how much lighter the bricks are when they are dry!) Some were ^6 and some were ^06, but most were red clay, all of which is still stacked in my garage. As time progressed, the old kiln started to fade and would only fire to ^1 so I wound up selling it and a kickwheel to someone who just wanted to do low fire work. My wife and I took advantage of an opportunity to buy the property next door to ours which had a house, a large carport, a small studio apartment, and 3/4 acre of bare ground, all of which needed a lot of work. We fixed the house and the carport and rented that, and told the renter that the studio apartment would be mine and that I was making it my pottery studio. He was OK with the plan and I fixed it up to suit my needs. I've since taken a Raku class at Sierra College and have been working at making and selling enough stuff to pay for the habit. The hardest part is working the land, part of which I turned into a farm, and spending time producing pottery. Right now, the farm is more profitable than the pottery and takes up most of my time since Spring has sprung and I'm prepping the ground for my new crop, but the plan is to take a break now and then to build some inventory so I can set up a booth at the local farmer's market and sell pots there where I would get more public exposure than at my small farmstand, So, I've been at making pottery for more than 10 years, more so since I retired from the remodeling business 3 years ago and it looks like I'll be doing it for a long time to come. Who knows...maybe I'll still be throwing when I become a "Ghost"?

Just last week I ran into my college ceramics professor at our local supplier's facility...almost didn't recognize her with the damn masks, but her fading fire engine red hair gave her away. Instead of teaching ceramics these days, she is teaching art classes online. She did tell me that she is deeply involved in bringing the NCECA to the Sacramento, CA area in 2022. I have kept her apprised of my progress since I took my last class (Raku) with her in '17. I find it somewhat amusing to think that, as a student in college, I was 20 years her senior...

Thanx for the pix, Jamie...What did you do to "adjust" the pot? The first thing I would do is pull the throttle bar and see if you could turn the shaft on the pot CCW manually to its stop to see if that stops the wheel from turning...if it does, then re-install the throttle bar and away you go. If it doesn't, then you'll have to replace the pot. Check at www.speedball art.com to see if you can get a replacement through them. If not, with the power off and one wire disconnected from the pot, measure the high end Ohms of the pot (the low end should be zero Ohms), record the overall physical measurements of the pot and go searching for a replacement.

No pix showed up...try uploading again

My suggestion would be to test what you want to do with small pieces...small shards on small pots... to see what happens... Welcome to the forum!

Open up the foot pedal again and send us a couple of pix of the guts...

No offense here, blackthorne...no apology needed or accepted. What was the source for the ones on your tiles? I like the presentation and could incorporate them on some of my vases...

What's mythological about naked ladies?

As for the rust, Krud Kutter makes an excellent rust removal product Krud Kutter The Must for Rust 8 oz. Rust Remover and Inhibitor-MR086 - The Home Depot I've used a number of rust removers and found this one to be the best...

I just checked the operating manual that I have and it is the same one @Bill Kielb notes in his response...go with that. I used those basic instructions with my B23H for a year with good outcomes for low fire work until I installed and Orton digital controller. I ultimately sold that kiln to someone who just wanted to do low-fire work and bought a used FX23 to do cone 6 work and just plugged the newer kiln into the Orton controller.

10,000 Years of Pottery by Emmanuel Cooper that I got from a friend as a Christmas gift...just getting into it...

Hi Kate...Welcome to the forum. Noisy is a relative term. Noisy with relation to what? Is it a noticeable whirring noise or does it howl like a loose fan belt on a car...or somewhere in between? There's a good possibility that it could be a loose fan belt in which case you can tighten it by moving the motor away from the centerline of the unit. If it's more of a grinding type noise, then it could be a bearing. It's been a while since I've had the undercarriage housing off and I don't remember the configuration, so I can't say how hard or easy bearing replacement would be. IMO anything that runs with a belt is going to generate a certain amount of noise...it's just a matter of what you consider noisy and whether or not you can live with it...BTW, Kate, did the wheel come with any kind of splash pan? If not, I can give you an idea of how I made mine. Just look earlier in this thread to get an idea of what I've done.

I'll continue experimenting with forms and glazes and building stock for when I have the opportunity to open a booth at the local Farmers' Market... Watching more artists' kiln openings videos for suggestions on future glaze combos and getting into crystal glazes by the end of the year...

Can you send pix of the old pot in place on the foot pedal. As for the resistance...I don't think it is that critical as long as the starting point is zero. Kinda like a gas pedal in a car. The more you press, the faster you go...