oldlady
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Posts posted by oldlady
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sorry, lee and gabby. that is what happens when you mean to reply one day and do it two days later!!
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gabby, love your bacon press! if you want to make a tray with the image, roll a slab of clay into the metal and cut it off at the edge without rolling up the edges. fire it to bisque and use it as a model. that way the letters come out in the right order.
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sorry, pres, that your space is so small for all the things you do. but i bet you will find more use for your new slab roller than you can imagine today.
i use my slab roller tables at both locations for a comfortable height table as well as rolling out slabs. i am fortunate that i found the big bailey, originally 8 feet long, when bailey decided to make only the big 30 inch size and put mine on clearance. it is 24 inches wide and i have cut it down to only 7 feet because when i put the bathroom in, the 8th foot stuck out. it is bolted to a heavy wooden door that serves as a stabilizer and gives me several inches behind and in front of the roller itself. i use both all the time and it is rare that the tabletop is not being actively used. there is storage space under it that holds lots of occasionally used wooden forms and the edge is where i hang lots of useful tools.
in the tiny studio in florida, the extra length that was added a couple of years ago became my table of choice. the height is just right for almost everything and it is so easy to wash off. when it was only 2 feet on either side of the roller, it was a pain because there was no room to work. i have watched other people make slabs only large enough for what they are making right now and cannot understand that way of working. i make slabs that are 22 by 28 or so and almost fill my printers blanket. that gives me enough to make several things at once and if i use a big piece, there is room for lots of small stuff on the leftover slab. gets lots of stock without having to devote a day to making small stuff. just form it and stuff it on a drywall shelf nearby to dry.
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denice, Penland has a wall that is made of a mosaic of many different pieces. could the article be related to that? i have taken pics of it and remember the planter that was the bottom half of a human sitting down on the wall, it was done in a pinkish clay.
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love my pacifica. got it in 1972, went through some problems caused by lightning and had to replace the foot pedal. have replaced the belts once, never realized how the wheel worked until then.
the biggest things i have made were maybe 10-12 pounds. no problems.
i have a clay boss down here. there was a man who was selling a kiln on craigslist. i knew him and when he arrived at my home with a wheel instead of a kiln, i bought it since i did not have one here. someone else got the kiln and he felt bad about it so sold me the wheel instead. it is fine for what i do, mostly bowls of various sizes, lots of empty ones.
reliability is the most important, silence is a very close second.
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cracking can also occur in flat slabs with deep indentations. picture the typical cookie cutter with a shape that has sharp angles, like the deep notch in heart shaped cutters. if you cut something like this, a rounded dowel or the used pencil eraser that is rounded over, can be pressed into the angle to compress the clay.
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we lost several of the best last year.
mitch lyons gave a lot of workshops introducing people to the broomstick method of making cylinders. i attended a meeting where he explained how he made his monoprints and showed the making of one print. he was a kind and gentle man.
we should not take for granted the continued presence of the potters we know of but do not have direct contact.
- LeeU and Marcia Selsor
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lee, what is the brand name of the clear panels you use as windows? my tiny trailer in florida has a wonderful porch but its "windows" are a little thicker than saran wrap. would love to keep the heat, (there is none out there) inside the porch. last year the temps hovered in the low 60s for months and i was sort of stuck inside.
the studio heater is ok but the space is not insulated well and the door has huge gaps all the way around it. a thick, folded bath towel keeps the wind under some control at the bottom of the big doorway but it still gets in at the edges.
the wv house is heated well by radiators, a separate zone for the studio. the boiler, though, runs on oil which is too expensive to make it all comfortable for the whole winter. so i go away. sitting here in the house with the thermostat set at 70, i am freezing and my nose is running. you see why i leave?
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Mark, I KNOW THAT DOG!
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am i the only one who cannot see any of the photos in all the posts above? i get a little symbol of a photo, some numbers and nothing else. clicking on them does no good. what am i doing wrong or what happened to everything on page 7?
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maybe the best "tool" is the way i keep them at hand for use all the time.
my slab roller was built on top of a table that i created with 2x4 legs, stretchers of plywood for storage and a very heavy wooden slab door. the table is wide enough that i have space between it an the wall for the large number of plastic jars for my sprayer and several pieces of foam rubber for pressing slabs. a heat gun and hair dryer live at the end near a 36 inch rolling pin i bought long ago when i thought i would need it. the front edge hangs a few inches over the legs and provides a space for 2 little containers that will hold the tiny bits of excess clay that otherwise would end up smashed onto the back of a freshly rolled slab. there is also a stack of sticks to judge thickness, i do not trust the little dial on the roller, i want to feel the thickness with my fingers.
the top is supported by a 2x4 on its narrow edge. this is the best tool, it allows me to hang all the things i need when making slab work. they are under the table top a few inches so i do not hit the nails or the tools themselves while working above on the table. i marked the top with a thick sharpie just where the nail can be found below. this means that i can find something without looking, the sharpie mark says it is right here. whether a cheese cutter, a pizza roller, a wallpaper smoother, a wide, narrow or extra wide putty knife, a towel or a cutoff wire. a glance at the black line and the tool is in my hand.
- Chilly, dhPotter and Pyewackette
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WOW, PRES! hope you are getting rich! some of us were worried when you started this project but you seem to be doing well.
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nataniajoy, you are very fortunate to have such a nice manual kiln as a gift. i thought by now you would have received an answer that addresses your problem as a totally new kiln user.
couple of things might help you understand the manual fred has so helpfully found for you. you need to realize that the kiln is a very old one as far as its manufacturing date is concerned and there was a slightly different vocabulary used then. "Automatic" back then meant your kiln was equipped with a Kiln Sitter that would mechanically turn off the kiln when a particular temperature was reached. the manual keeps referring to it as the ASD, automatic shutoff device (or sitter. prior to the use of a sitter, the potter had to watch the firing and turn it off at the end by looking into the kiln peep holes and judging the temperature at which to turn off the electricity. ) cones have been use for over a hundred years to help do that.
the temperature you select for each firing is commonly referred to by a cone number. that means the same kiln can be used by potters who fire earthenware or stoneware which is usually fired to a higher temperature. so you need to select the cone number for the clay and/or glazes you are using.
the number on the cone indicates a temperature but the firing can take a little longer as the elements wear out over time. so the cone ,which you place HORIZONTALLY across the two little arms, will determine the time and temperature of your firing. the arms hold up the cone and the rod end of the "claw" of the sitter sits over the cone resting on it. SINCE THE INVENTION OF CONE BARS MANY PEOPLE USE THEM IN THE SITTER. bars are of a uniform size end to end. cones are tapered and some people have trouble putting them onto the arms and getting the claw rod in the middle of the cone.
when the cone gets hot enough for a long enough time, it will melt. that means it sinks down and allows the rod end of the claw to sink as well. the other end of the claw, the part outside the kiln, is really the claw looking end and it is holding a weight that will be released by the rising of the claw. the weight will snap down and activate a round electrical shut off button that is located on the outside of the sitter. (if you find you cannot start your kiln at any time, check that the claw is holding the weight and the button is close to the kiln, not sticking out.)
i hope this is enough to help you read the manual and that will explain your particular kiln.
the most important thing you need to learn is that it is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT that you understand the cone numbers of your clay and glazes. look at a CONE CHART and read the numbers and the temperatures carefully. there are some essential facts that are commonly glossed over when experienced potters are talking to each other.
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 AND THEN CONE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ETC. are each a little hotter running from left to right. check the chart! and check your clay. write the cone # on the bag of clay so you DO NOT make the mistake of thinking that cone 6 is the same as cone 06. that is a completely different temperature and if you use cone 06 clay and use a #6 cone in your sitter, you will probably melt everything and ruin the kiln.
see the recent post by benzine for what can happen.
hope you bothered to read this long post and understand it.
- yappystudent, Hulk, Wcrowe and 3 others
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thank you, john, for the warning.
really like the two brown pieces on the shelf above the paint can!
how did you do the one on the right, the colors are special.
wrote this wednesday afternoon. found it just now.
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yes, there are pitchers around the top of my kitchen cabinets, cream and sugars on the china cabinet, lots of various things in the shelves around the fireplace in the living room and a huge collection of the smaller Windy Meadows houses in two rooms. plus all the things in the kitchen cabinets, the beautiful things my daughter in law called "mismatched dishes". i am considering downsizing and selling some of the ones by potters that collectors know.
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thank you , yappy, for the aquarium silicone suggestion! i need to glue my shoes together again and there is just no good way to do it. yes, i will glue some sponge to dowels for claywork but i really need to fix about 6 pair of shoes. bad foot means only one kind fits but they fall apart after a week or so.
how did you do the one on the right, the colors are special.
What’s on your workbench?
in Aesthetic Approaches and Philosophy
Posted
liam, may i suggest that you get a much finer grain sponge? that one leaves heavy trails of slip where you do not want them. cutting a tile grout sponge in half and then cutting the half into bread thick slices gives you a number of throwing sponges and one bigger clean-up one.