[Air trapped and exploding]

i applaud your skill in balancing such a large top on such a slender base.

[Pedestal bowl/Cake stand sinking down in the glaze firing]

do you have the skills to throw the whole thing at once?   upside down with a slight slope so the "flat" part is not flat on the wheelhead or bat.  join the stem by bringing the center upward into a pedestal.  try it slowly with a small piece and work up to something bigger.   as the piece dries, catch it at just the right point to use one finger pressing down on the outer edge to make it flat  or just a small upward rim.

are you planning to make many of these or is it just a one off?

[Underglaze and Single Fire?]

same questions as min's  above.   info from you about your skill level also helps.  vocabulary needs clarification.

[Firemate]

 yes, the more you say and show the better the answers will be.   is firemate the name of a kiln?   is it new to you?  have you fired your own kilns before?  is it electric?

[Paragon kiln A-9918]

NEIL,  i edited the post above, sorry about messing up your name.

[Christmas Pottery Booth comes to an end after 43 years]

thank you, mark!  found these at midnight, will watch later today.  you live in a fun place where people make an effort to enjoy life.

[Paragon kiln A-9918]

THANKS, NEIL!  that was the first thing i wanted to say.    i also think it is stacked in the wrong order.   never see a kiln sitter at the bottom, it belongs in the middle layer.     SORRY, NEIL,  HOW DOES THE SITTER WORK IF IT IS ONLY A FEW INCHES ABOVE THE BOTTOM?

i had one   SIMILAR TO  of these that a friend gave me.  i used it for years.  THAT LABEL reads 2500 degrees so i think it is a cone 10, not an 8.  (UNLESS MY NEW GLASSES SEE IT DIFFERENTLY)  it is also a 3 phase so check electrical stuff right away, you do not want to sell it  without knowing what the buyer will need to do.

did you drive it anywhere in that truck?  how did you keep it stable so it would not be ruined on the drive home?   brick sound like something very strong but you can damage those with a fingernail.

looking closer, i see the stand but did not spot a bottom anywhere.  does it have one?

[Kiln monk]

is that space big enough for me?   temp here went down to one, 1, degree F a few days ago.

[Problems with engobe - again]

babs,  i think the 2 typos may need clarification.    in the one about firing  "fitinv" and spraying "asater"  leave me wondring if there is a product in australia that i am unaware of.    or is my old age showing again.  so many words are used differently today.

[Casserole dish]

last september,   when you joined, you said you were a brand new potter.  casseroles are a complicated project at this stage of your ceramics education,  how are you learning so fast?   classes, books, videos?

[How bad could this kiln be?]

blacksheep, nobody has said exactly what is wrong with this kiln.  the very first thing you would have to do is lift if off the ground.  will need a forklift and a great deal of skill to lift it intact.  it has been sitting so long it has probably gained lots of weight from the water in the ground.  i had one of these given to me years ago.  the "gift" was his way of getting out of his yard.  it never worked.  i think i buried it when i was building the house.

look for a reasonably old kiln, not anything that looks like this.  a hundred dollars could buy you a smaller kiln that works depending on where you are located.

[Never happened in 50 years= lightning strikes same spot twice]

glad to hear of your good fortune!  you did the work, now reap the benefits.

[How bad could this kiln be?]

not even 100 pennies!   run away, fast.

[Christmas Pottery Booth comes to an end after 43 years]

i hope you have a very comfortable recliner to stay in for at least a few days but before you go to your well deserved slow schedule, please put a link to the parade your town  did.  well, i hope they still do it but i remember the marching and music as they happily  went around the square.   i enjoyed watching all those folks having a great time and would love to see it again.  if they are still doing it, you will get to watch as a spectator only.

[Glazing and firing a conical shape]

will that wire really hold the weight without sagging?    if the wire is strong enough i would try hanging them from a wire supported by posts at either end.   it would be simpler to leave the bottom unglazed.  

[Is it possible to make a living?]

shawnhar, spoon rests are a good thing to sell, they are not expensive and people using dishwashers need more than one.   but, i do remember two men who were looking at a small tray about 6x10 and they planned to use it as a single spoon rest to hold 3 spoons at a time.   kaching!

[QotW: When you buy a number of a potter's pieces do you feel the need to meet the maker?]

 there are many, many pots in my house that i have collected since the 1970s.  the first was from a small store in georgetown, DC.  the price of $15 was a lot.  it was made by a man who lived in the mountains of west virginia.   a round lidded jar totally unglazed,  brown clay rubbed with black and rio red slips.   i still admire it, signed van nostrand.  a local magazine featured him in a story and i visited  his studio and home later. 

john glick lived a few miles from my sister.  i have several of his things, bought during the visits i made to his plum tree pottery on ten mile road.   

there are some made by tom coleman, one that could have come from the first book written about him and a later one in the warm, toasty colors of the desert.   i attended two workshops tom gave,  more than two would have made me a groupie.   the second was with tom and elaine.   fabulous!

a tiny town sits on the mantle and fills a bookcase.  they are Windy Meadows hometown buildings,  jan signed all of them.   she lived across the river, only a few miles.

there are lots more, some made by potters you may have heard of and some you have not.  i watched seth cardew make the one in the corner during a workshop in maryland.  i bought the cup i used in a visit to the michael cardew studio that seth inherited.  many of michael's pots were still there.  

john leach did workshops for our guild for several years.  i visited his studio with a friend.  she bought a huge pot that she shipped home to los angeles and i got a few of the very small ones.   i have a david leach and one not made by him but from his studio.  i was fortunate to be in bovey tracey for a huge retrospective of his work and visited him in his studio.  

everywhere i look i see something beautiful made by a potter, some of which i use often were  made by members of this group,  it is a pleasure to be surrounded by handmade pieces made with love.  they make me smile.

 

 

[Super matte glaze?]

using a matte glaze can give you very subtle results as these pots show.  i use a beautiful matte glaze on the exteriors of most of my bowls.

if you are interested in making functional ware, please try using a spoon in or on a matte glazed bowl before you invest too heavily in the idea of it being ok as a liner glaze.  you will find that the sound of your spoon scraping the bowl will remind you of chalk screeching on a blackboard.  oh, wait.   there haven't been blackboards in school in ages, you may not be familiar with that sound.

 

[Single fire/Once firings]

hello, kevin,

i have been single firing for a number of years.  i use the clay and glazes that anyone else would.   i have not found any problems after i started spraying glaze instead of any other method.   i do not even spray the "accepted" way.   i can glaze a kiln load of my work in an afternoon.  it is an L&L kiln about 23x 27 (or so).  i always use the slow glaze that is built into the electronics.   i figure the kiln manufacturer knows more than i do about how to use the kiln to my advantage.

most of what i make is serving ware,  flat, not much higher than an inch or two and not difficult to make.   botanicals pressed into slabs and shaped using wood and foam rubber or pantyhose covered small bowls.   cracker trays and butterdishes.  they sell quickly and are so easy to make that i really do not do the things most throwers  do.  i can throw but at 82 my fingers do not have the same suppleness they did.  an afternoon of throwing might result in waking up to throbbing fingers that night.

the fun in what i make is the choice of botanicals, placement on the shape i use, lots of freeform stuff that dries inside old platters, bowls etc.    you might look at my photo albums .   click on my avatar and choose "my profile" and look for photos from 2016 holiday sale in november.   each of us has an album space available to show our work or an idea to share.  

if you want to try single firing the absolute RULE is   FIRE ONLY TOTALLY DRY PIECES, NOTHING THICK!

 

 

[QotW: How has the physicality of making pots effected you? Please include Positives and Negatives.]

rae, here is one very impatient person.

[QotW: How savvy are your customers about pottery?]

yes, kids are the best.  a mother had two daughters with her.  all were dressed in sunday best clothes.  the girls each had $10 to spend.  one of them wasn't sure about the amount of money $10 actually was.   she wanted a little bird that i had priced at $7 and when i gave her the change from her $10 i said she should ask her mother to explain the change back.  i gave her 4 ones and 4 quarters and a wink at her mother to stay quiet and let the sisters buy the ice cream next door for $5.  they had been talking about it when they came into my booth.

[Bisqued slip is running during glaze firing]

mkg, glad you like the results.  may i suggest something that may not have occurred to you?  i think the lines you drew were done with a sharp instrument like a needle tool.  

the raggedness of the lines indicate a sharpness to the pattern that could cut skin if someone rubbed it.  the shape invites rubbing so someone may be cut on the edges.  to avoid that, use a stylus with a ball end that is just the right size or look at Diamond Tools for their special cutting tools for carving and scraffito.

[Tenacious Stain(s)?]

testing is very important so recording what you do is critical.  i had a friend who kept each glaze to one page of a 3 ring notebook.  she noted the base glaze by number on both the test and the page it was recorded on.   she wrote the recipe and if she tested various mason stains to get other colors, each color got it's own page.   i do something similar but often wish i had here more descriptive notes.  some of mine say,  never again!  but not why.  the reason for the never again is so if you find what looks like a nice color on someone else's clay, you will know it looks awful on yours because the recipe is right there to compare.

[Help with using a Duncan Automatic Teacher-Plus Kiln]

lots of questions about this particular kiln.   the word automatic has a totally different meaning today.  back then it meant "this kiln has an automatic shut off device called a kiln sitter, like a baby sitter.   you do not have to watch the heat color any more to know when to turn it off, it turns off by itself automatically."

just follow any kiln manual, they are basically the same.

[Dipping vs Brushing]

in case anyone wants to try bab's suggestion about carpet, be sure to use something from the thin but strong commercial stuff.   you do not even need wax if you do foot rings on the wet carpet, just slide the whole piece across the carpet,  the excess glaze will wash off instantly.  keep it pretty clean, especially if the glaze is a dark one.