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Joseph Fireborn

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Posts posted by Joseph Fireborn

  1. 12 minutes ago, Mark C. said:

    sorry to hear you are out of clay making

    Not sure I am out forever. I am just building 2 businesses and I have 3 kids, by the time I am done working I am pretty exhausted. I thought I will just keep this, but its been 3-4 years since I have touched it except a few times when I had a moment. I just figure I won't get to it for another 5 years maybe. I guess I could just move it to a corner and let it sit, but I worry about things locking up and control panels not being used for several years etc.

  2. 2 minutes ago, Hulk said:

    Although the market for used pottery gear may have softened a bit, looks to still be very strong.
    My only suggestions would be a) peruse recent listings (new & used) - same as buyers would do - and price accordingly, and b) keep the wheel, if you've a place for it to wait 

    Yea. I guess I will have to get on my wife's facebook and see what I can find out. Seems marketplace is the way to go.

  3. Hello. I haven't been in this thread part of these forums before. If this price check is against the rules then please just remove the post. I wasn't sure where else to ask it since I haven't been here in a while.

    I am probably going to be selling my Studio soon but the main 3 items are my kiln, wheel and slab roller. I wanted to make sure I knew the going rates so I can offer a fair price to myself and the potential buyers.

    L&L Easy18-3 with an upgraded digital controller. It has been gentle used with probably 500 firings, half of them being bisque. Although I don't know the true amount because I replaced the controller. The elements look pretty good and the last firing was 2 months ago and it went smooth as expected.

    Thomas Stuart Legend Pottery Wheel 1/3HP - Still in perfect working order.

    Shimpo Slab Roller 30x50, the table one.

    -

    I really appreciate any feedback regarding what I should start at for these machines.

  4. That glaze does not have any Gerstley Borate. There is no way it would look like that unless you under-fired it. The fact that you can put another glaze on top of it and it is still mostly on the test tile means there is definitely no GB, unless that other glaze on top has absolutely no frit in it?

    So if you wanted to replicate that glaze and figure out what it is, I would do this.

    1. Since you said you had a few unlabeled bags, I would mix up that exact glaze but missing the 50% GB.

    2. Figure out how many cups you want to use, so say its 10 attempts to figure this out. Measure out 100ml of glaze with the mystery recipe but don't include the Gerstley Borate. Instead leave that out. But use the same amount of water you would have used if it was in there.

    3. Measure out 10ml with a syringe into each cup, making sure you stir well before each one. I use a milk frother for this...

    4. Take your 10 mystery attempt materials that look similar to Gerstley Borate that you might have used instead. Put 50% weight(the missing GB amount) of the mystery chances into each cup. You will have to do the math on this to figure out what this should be, but it isn't difficult at all.

    5. Glaze a test tile or a little test dish or whatever you want in the 10 mystery glazes and make sure to record everything.

    6. Fire it all on the exact same schedule with the same load mass that you did for the first tile.

    7. Pull out the results and keep any of them that look similar to the original tile, go from there.

  5. That is pretty close in rates I doubt it will matter. As with everything though, best to test before you commit to a ton of production work.

    I make a slip out of a clay body that I dry and then grind down into a powder form so I can mix it with other additives. All of my work uses this slip over another clay body.

    I love slipping pots this way, it adds a lot to the final form if done right. I am not sure exactly what you are after, but the best thing to do is try applying you slip to different stages of the green ware in the drying process. Find which one you get the best results with for what you are after, and then repeat that process a few times before committing it it.

  6. 3 minutes ago, GEP said:

    It’s about training your body to be able to produce high volumes, using a reasonable amount of time and labor. The “modern machinery” required for a pottery studio is your own body, honed for efficiency. There’s only one way to develop this …. by doing it for a few decades. 

    I totally agree here, but not everyone is capable of doing this physically day in and out. I wasn't and it is one of the main reasons I decided to stop. I kept trying but my body wouldn't let me due to health issues from the past. Your statement alone that it takes decades to develop your body into the machine required basically sums it up. At some point you have to make pots to sell pots, and if you cannot make pots you cannot make money. That is a drastically limiting business model for someone who might face health adversity; this is basically all I was stating, the OP was asking what things limit turning a hobby into a business. Physical requirements are one of them. On top of this, you cannot turn it over to someone else if you go through a health crisis. If you make the pots, decorate the pots, fire the pots, etc. No one person can replace you. It is a delicate business plan that requires you front and center every single day.

    7 minutes ago, GEP said:

    Some are paying for their entire lives (housing, vehicles, food, utilities, health insurance, retirement plan) by making and selling pots, without any other support. All of these are valid businesses, but they aren’t equal. As a person in the last category, it really annoys me when anyone suggests I should act more like a person in the first category. That’s not the boat I’m paddling these days. I’m not putting down those in the first category, because I was that person when I started out! I’m arguing that anyone who wants to discuss the Business of Pottery should recognize and understand the differences when they are discussing it. 

    I don't understand why anyone would make that comment, but I often find myself not understanding people. If I somehow made that comment in my post, I apologize I had no intentions of that meaning. If anything I admire people who can succeed as a full-time potter with no other support, it is impressive.

  7. I always find the discussions of success interesting. Success is such a hard word to pin down, what some people consider success to others might be laughable.

    A potter making 50K a year in profits(not revenue) might be wildly successful to themselves, but someone else might consider that awful with the amount of manual labor it took for a person to do that in most cases. Making pots as an individual is really hard work no matter what techniques you use.

    Success is really up to the individual, if you are happy making 10K a year in profits and are securing your lively hood through another manner, congrats you are happy and successful!

    Pottery as a business is probably one of the most challenging forms of art type business you can take on. The equipment is large, the materials are heavy, the ingredients are a hazard and the time and manual labor that goes into each piece is usually under valued.  If you sell in person, you have to haul tons of stuff to a fair or show. If you sell online, you have to package and ship materials that are fragile and cannot be easily replaced. Neither of those things are optimal. It really is one of the most challenging sole owner businesses out there. Which probably explains why there are not a lot of individual million dollar potters, but plenty rich in livelihood, joy and a good bit of money.

    I had a fundamental problem with pottery and turning it into a business, it doesn't scale very well. At some point you are going to cap out on the amount of shows you can do, pots you can make, and boxes you can pack. If you want to push into 6 figures you have to be really smart with what you do and be savvy in time management. It isn't easy to do and as others have shown it definitely is possible to do; but other types of businesses can scale so much easier with a single person and modern machinery.

    I really like making pots and I like selling them too. Knowing someone is drinking out of my cups year after year experiencing joy is a nice feeling. It is one of the best reasons to be a potter. Not many forms of art are used daily in such an important thing as nourishment of our bodies.  I still think being rich in joy is way better than being rich in money. Unfortunately you need both!

    I think I agree with GEP on this subject of instagram. Those people with millions of followers are wildly successful at getting likes and follows, but really they are earning way more money for instagram than themselves. That being said I know that instagram can add to your sales and get visibility to your shop, but I think the potters who utilize it the best are not the ones who have the quarterly flash sales, it is the potters who have a constant online shop available for the impulse buys. When someone is scrolling through their feed and the algorithm places one of your pots on their feed, they click through, click to your website and convert. That conversion can be a newsletter signup, clicking your show dates, or buying a pot from your shop. If you don't have any thing like this available and you are on instagram, then you need to make an adjustment.

  8. 1 hour ago, JohnnyK said:

    Becoming self employed is always a BIG step in your life and when you persist and become successful, there's no turning back. It was a scary thing back in '78 when my wife left a cushy, but boring office job to start a housecleaning business with a girlfriend. They started the business with 500 printed flyers which they delivered to all the local realtors on a daily basis for a week. The beginning of the following week they got a call from a successful realtor who decided to give them a try. That was the last and only time they advertised. Everything since then has been word of mouth. I got involved with them a few years later as a handyman doing any repairs they needed in the houses that they were working in. That ultimately led to my becoming a General Contractor which lasted until I retired 5 years ago. My wife is still working and making $50 an hour cleaning houses, painting, decorating and organizing for a few select clients. Once we got established, we never looked back and could never imagine working for a salary. So, Joseph, your whole world is there for the taking as long as you want to put in the effort!

    GOOD LUCK, grow well and be successful in all your endeavors!

    For sure, I left my job a few months ago. Stuck it out for 2 years until I was outgrowing my wifes income which she was the main provider. It was hard putting in 60 hours a week for 2 years, but done. So hoping now to regain my pottery hobby.

     

  9. What Denice said. The stuff we think is terrible sometimes is exactly what they want. I had some pots that were on a table in my house where I was observing them. We had a family over that had helped us with some hand me down clothing for my 3 boys. They saw the cups and were going crazy over them. I wasn't too satisfied with the details of them, but they were functionally perfect. So I offered them to the family. I spoke with my sister in law a few weeks ago and she brought up that they use those cups to drink tea/coffee out of every single morning for the last 3 years or so. I was just going to throw them away because I didn't like the looks.

    I imagine this is one of the greatest factors that separate a great unsuccessful artist and a great successful artist.

    I run another business now and people constantly amaze me at what they think looks great. I am looking forward to making some pottery this summer and I will probably list all the functional pots on etsy instead of hammering them if I don't like the looks. I have grown a fair bit in the last 2 years of self employment.

  10. On 1/22/2023 at 11:04 AM, Callie Beller Diesel said:

    Because I’ve been following Naomi Dagliesh and her husband for a few years now, I know the clay is pretty short, and she cuts those feet with the edge of a wooden rib. It leaves the grit they add to the clay exposed. They get that texture only partly from the material: technique is significant as well.

    This is super important. I am glad you wrote this Callie. I completely forgot about the techniques that add to the bodies.

    When I was working with the bodies, I hand trimmed everything on a banding wheel and a wooden knife, just ripped it away. Lots of failures until I got the hang of it.

     

     

  11. 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.

  12. You can definitely get some body flashing with wood-ash in electric kilns. I did it for a bit, as an experiment to see what all I could get out of unwashed ash from my fireplace mixed in with various components to make sure it melts at cone 6. It helps with shells for sure to add to it. That being said it isn't anything random or magical like a firing with an atmosphere. The only interesting results you are going to get are ones that you create manually via your glazing process.

    This can seem like a downer at first, but if you are careful with your application and research you can achieve interesting results that are repeatable. So maybe to the potter it isn't as great of a pot, but to others it can be just as magical.

    u57yLWC.jpg\

    DgkCt1J.jpg

    9QWR9Ne.jpg

    EZfoM8q.jpg

     

    All of these are cone 6 electric fired, you can see subtle flashing around the bases where wood ash glazes end. I would just start experimenting with seashells as the first flashing opportunity. They are easy to acquire, work well, and don't need any special treatment besides placing them on a pot.

    Oh I found photos of my test tiles previous to this work that show the flashing better:

    ZEjYBCe.jpg

    bK31RLs.jpg

    9Qm6h9C.jpg

  13. On 9/23/2022 at 12:51 PM, jrklark said:

    Hi everyone :)

    I use a cone 6+ porcelain from a local supplier and attach with a process and slip much like described by Mark C.. I've talked with the supplier but am still having problems. Mugs usually are covered about 30 minutes after I throw them and handles are attached the next day. The clay body is pretty soft and needs the overnight time to setup enough to be handled (no pun intended). The handle cracking seems to be caused by shrinking. 

    Thanks!!!IMG_1999a.jpg.d573fbe98ab73de3ec632c0be92ae6cd.jpg

     

    I think these are just snapping because the handle is being applied to dry. To me with the clean break it looks like it was stressed when bending the shape and then as it dried the stress caused it to crack. There is really no other reason a handle would snap at this location besides stress during application. Cracks from a handle from drying normally would be around the application point, where the body of the cup is pulling moisture from the handle.

    I would try to apply your handle a bit sooner, no amount of slow drying is going to save a fractured piece when being bent.

  14. 11 hours ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

    It takes a little bit, getting back on the bike if you’ve been away for a while. It comes. I found after my extended break, I had a massive flood of constant ideas for a long time. Keep a notebook or a sketchbook handy!

    After the last year, I am investing time into actual self care practices, not just engaging in escapism. I need to fill the well after helping my kids through *gestures wildly at everything*.

     

    Kids are so busy. I was spoiled with my 9 year old who just turned 10. Now this 1.5 year old is just rampaging everything again. I forgot what that was like. Hahaha.

     

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