Piedmont Pottery

Yep. The only issue is that it may not fit properly, but that's true of all clay bodies. What fits on one may not fit on another. As always, run a test before you use it on something you care about.

Kyanite is available in 200 mesh and would not detract from the smoothness of your clay.

Kyanite is available in 200 mesh and would not detract from the smoothness of your clay.

I have found that if I really loved a piece, and there are a few, I would  set the price at a value that I really felt that it was worth. Often around $500, some sold and others I still have and still display in the house.
Funny about gifting family. . . years ago I used to gift pots, as I could not afford nice gifts. Over the years the quality of my work changed, and the value of nice gifts went up to where my pots were nicer gifts!.  Most of my folks are happy to have a nice teapot, colander, fish dish or casserole for two.  My one sister has a high shelf that has nothing but her brothers fine ware.
 
best,
Pres

The presence of lead in an older kiln is definitely an issue, as it can be dangerous to your health if you are exposed to it for an extended period of time. Lead is a heavy metal, and it can accumulate in the body over time, leading to serious health issues. It is also toxic to the environment, so it should be handled with care. For this reason, it is important to ensure that any kiln you are considering purchasing is tested for lead before you purchase it. If the kiln tests positive for lead, it is best to avoid it and look for a different kiln. It is also a good idea to make sure that any kiln you use is properly ventilated to reduce your exposure to lead and other toxins.

The lead issue is big for me. The story of Thomas Midgley Jr. is an interesting one. Lead contaminates everything!  Good story on contaminating the planet - here https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA
 
IMO good you did not buy it.

Hi!
You can definitely create this on your own. I do it in small batches because I don't have a mixer.
Find a ratio of sand, grog, and grit(if you want it super chunky). I sprinkle the mixture onto a wedging surface. Then I take about 5-10 pounds of clay sliced up into cubes. I place the cubes on the mixture and roll them around. Then I slam wedge all the pieces together for a bit, then spiral wedge it and slice it apart into throwing balls.
I will say learning to throw this type of clay takes practice because it will eat your hands apart very quickly. Particularly if you add the grit.
https://www.starworksnc.org/starworks-clay
If you are local to the south east USA. Starworks clay makes a clay that resembles of the above clays:
Grogeewemee 10
This is the coarsest clay we make. It is based on OkeeMedium 10 with added coarse grog.  Perfect for larger scale coil building and slab work. The Grogeewemee 10 clay body works very well in wood or salt kilns.
Cone 10-12, Average Shrinkage at cone 10 OX = 11.94%, Average Water Absorption at cone 10 OX = 3.95%, Contains 19.5% Mullite, Kyanite and coarse grog
I have handled it in person and it is very nice.

Patching cracks in plaster is difficult if not impossible. I vote for covering it with a piece of Hardiebacker.

E6000 remains a bit flexible when cured and adheres very well to ceramics.  We've been using it for several years now without any failures.

E6000 remains a bit flexible when cured and adheres very well to ceramics.  We've been using it for several years now without any failures.

I get the whole range too, from “what is this made out of?” to “what cone and atmosphere?” I think my favorite customers are not necessarily the technically knowledgable, but the ones who care a great deal about home design and function, i.e. making their home into a space where they feel happy. 
Over the years, I have found that as I moved up into a higher tier of craft shows, I really don’t meet the clueless ones anymore. And the ones who don’t know much about ceramics are at least smart people in general and know how to ask intelligent questions. 
I also like to talk shop with other potters. They aren’t necessarily interested in buying, they want to learn. That’s fun for me too. 

A minivan is the best choice for me. It is big enough to do shows, and small enough to be a personal vehicle too. It’s also really comfortable for long road trips. It’s the best balance of cargo space, drivability, and gas mileage. If I’m at a downtown city show, I never have to worry about fitting into parking garages. I have a Toyota and it’s pretty low maintenance too. 

Hello Marco,
Welcome to the forum. While I can't answer as one who makes a living from pottery, I can share my observations. It appears to me that many of the more successful potters  not only make pots to sell, but they also teach classes in a studio and/or workshops at craft schools, and are very active on social media. 
Betty

It's not a great situation, but it may not be that bad, either. The primary concern is the control system, which  definitely should not get wet. Once all the electrical parts dry out and you power it up you'll know what parts survived and what didn't. The bricks just need to dry out, assuming the mortar in the lid and floor slabs didn't soften up and come apart. You'll want to dry it out ASAP, and do it with the lid open so you don't grow mold in it. I've seen a kiln that was kept closed up for a few weeks after getting wet and the entire inside was black with mold, including between the outer body bands and the brick. Ideally you want to get it running and take it up to 200 degrees or so and hold there for a few days so it dries completely.

Issac Button was a machine. Just casually wearing a shirt and tie under his coveralls,  pouring glaze in 25 lb bowls smoking a pipe the whole time. 

Wow, I would never get that in the bottom of the old L&L or the new one; my gut would bust on the second one!
 
best,
Pres

Hi,
 The Kiln is an L&L EasyFire E23M-3 that Neil helped us select. It is rated to cone 10.  We have no idea if she will ever need cone 10.
 The hope was to have lots of options. She is primarily enthused about working with locally found clay and has a goal towards learning to find and use locally found finish colorants. She had been taking some classes at a local open to the public studio, where she was constrained to use of materials that conformed to the workflow of that facility. Now she can experiment and develop her other interests.
 She has a shelf of small to be fired local clay pots ready to go, and we expect that there will be at lot failures before she gets the temperature just right.
 It will be complicated by the fact that she greatly enjoys working with clay from different deposits from different geologic periods. We live in the desert cliff region and have easy access to a cross section of material that was deposited over a range of 400 millions years.
 She hand builds, and her output is very modest. This is a pure pleasure hobby for her. She has been putting off purchasing a kiln for far too long, so I thought it was time to make it happen.
 I'll probably make a few things but I'm inclined to use store bought clay. I took pottery classes in college 40 years ago, but didn't learn much about the tech because we had a marvelous professor who made everything work so we could focus on shape and form.
It's great that now a days the tech information is so accessible, so we figure we can learn at our own pace and see what happens. 

My sense is compression, especially for large items. Anytime something is stretched out compressing downward  often does not put things back from which they came. Often if something is stretched away from itself it needs to be pushed back in upon itself to be compressed again. The physics or thermodynamics of a kiln really make it hard for a shelf to mysteriously overheat something. Energy flows downhill like water until the levels are even so I have never found the shelf to be at issue unless the piece does not slide smoothly along the shelf while changing size. Just an educated guess, and I could be totally wrong in speculating, but how do you compress? 
This may give you a new idea about compression https://youtu.be/jVNJELUpclk
 

I'm a big fan of backer board, both as a wedging surface and for quickly drying out slop.  They're readily available, inexpensive, and no worries about getting bits of plaster in your clay.

120/125 volts are the same thing. The difference between this plug and regular household plug is that the kiln has a 20 amp plug, , whereas most household outlets are 15 amps. You can only plug it into a receptacle that is wired for that amperage. You'll need to have an electrician upgrade the wires and outlet for whatever receptacle you plan to use. Code requires that the kiln be on a breaker that is 25% greater than the draw of the kiln, so it should actually be on a 25 amp circuit and have a 30 amp power cord and plug on it.

Sorry to say, but I disagree with a hands off approach to teaching adults. Firstly, one needs to determine the skill level of the adult.
If a beginner or novice to wheel throwing there are certain needs that I found very important other than the obvious hand positions and movements. There is the need to understand how much pressure is applied to the clay by either hand for centering and pulling. Interior hand and finger positions are difficult to see on smaller pieces, using a larger piece for demonstration and for hand positions lets 2-3 hands inside of the pot to help feel correct finger positions in relation to outside fingers. This also allows better understanding of the pressures needed in the beginning and end of a pull.
More advanced students often could develop poor habits in arm positions (chicken winging), and finger positions relative to inside and outside of the pot. A coaching attitude at this point allows for further development and helps to correct the poor habits. It often will mean demonstrating the correct positions, and hands on to help the student to understand why one position  is more effective than the other.
All IMHO,
best,
Pres 

Yes, hard wiring does eliminate a possible weak point in the system, but from a maintenance and repair standpoint I prefer plugs to hard-wired because I don't have to work around a fixed cord that may or may not allow me to easily open the control box(es) and work inside them. More often than not, with hard-wired kilns I end up having to either hold the box open with my knee while I work in the box (uncomfortable and not as safe), or remove the box completely. With a plug I can just unplug the kiln and move the cord wherever I need it to be. I work on a lot of kilns with plugs, and every year I do run into a couple that need the outlet to be replaced due to corrosion and/or arcing, so it does happen. However those are almost always kilns at schools where people are not regularly inspecting the system. If you have it hard wired, use a long enough whip that you can open the inner box all the way without the whip being a nuisance, assuming a whip that long is allowed by your local code. At the very least it needs to be long enough that you can open the inner box far enough to pull the wires through so the box can be removed.

If these are for jurying, they look “proper” to me. 
My one suggestion, invest in a backdrop that gradates with more contrast. Whiter in the front/bottom and much darker in the back/top. It will give the photo more depth, and make the pot stand out more. I like the Flotone “Thunder Gray” backdrop. 

Beware. It’s a wild world you’re stepping into.  Maybe the clay has a high percentage of non plastic material, even though it’s throwable and feels plastic. If it’s actually sticky, then you ought to be able to “stick” a handle to it. Check out Tony Hansen on “splitting:”
https://www.digitalfire.com/glossary/splitting/
Sedimentary clays are often found in “lenses,” or lens shaped layers with sand, silt, and and silty or sandy clay. You might go back to your spot and see if there’s a more pure clay layer. Silty sandy clay can seem plastic when wet enough, yet the clay an inch below or above what you dug may be the sweet stuff. One way to differentiate that is by trying to break or crumble a totally dry piece in your fingers. The more difficult it is, the less non plastic material it has.
Sieving out the non plastics gets... complicated. The finer they are, the trickier it gets. I’ve found it much easier to collect clay that’s mostly clay.  
Another thought is to add a more plastic ingredient, like bentonite, Veegum, or ball clay. That will increase drying shrinkage, and the effort it takes to dry pots without cracks. 
14% shrinkage at bisque, cone 06-04, seems like a lot, and if it hasn’t melted by cone 6 (sounds like it’s on the cusp though) that's a wide firing range. 
Tony Hansen has done so much work on prospecting, testing, and evaluating wild clays, posting it free of charge on Digitalfire. The guy deserves a medal. It’s worth diving into what he’s written if you stay on this path.
I would say, what your clay needs is for you to test it more. Not melting by cone 6 means it’s different than 90% of clay on earth. Getting that sheen at cone 6, it’s what your teacher said, vitrification, maturation. There are just a lot of possibilities. Do some absorption testing. Too cool!!!

Welcome to the forum
Welcome to the new world anything goes with people thses days
All I can say is double down on the word NO
You cannot please everyone all the time just learn the new normal is NO for ridiculous requests