Callie Beller Diesel

If you’ve got an electrician coming in anyways for the kiln, can the heater be moved, or another one added in the left hand side? I did also have that concern about having both kiln and heater in the same area. But my logic for having the kiln separate from the office area was that if you’re firing the kiln, you maybe don’t want to be always working next to it, even with venting. Working on office stuff while the kiln’s going (or running it overnight with appropriate precautions) was my assumption. But it depends on how you’ve got your work cycles set up.

I propose this layout below. You may want to adjust it, but here’s the logic: 1) Put as many things on wheels as you can for ease of cleaning, and so you could maybe shift things if necessary. The orientation of the large work table on the right side may be changed, but the table should have bucket/material storage underneath. Additional materials/small items/tests/work in progress can be stored on adjustable shelves in that awkward between post area. 1a) I strongly suggest adding more lighting, and perhaps paint the walls white. I had a similar paneling system in my studio, and found it very depressing, especially in the winter. 2) You’ll probably want a small rolling cart to transfer finished work from the kiln to the office side, where you’ll photograph, make listings and pack it. I’m assuming the closet will hold packing or other office supplies. 3) Clay comes in through garage door #2, and travels the farthest distance. It gets stacked close to the wheel working area on the end of the work table. 4) Pots get made in the back left corner. You may wish to have a small wedging table or some low shelves in front of you to hold work as you make it, or put some adjustable shelving on the walls for ware-in-progress storage that works around the heater. You could enclose this in plastic for a damp cabinet, or not. There’s no measurements to work with, so I didn’t get too specific. 5) Pots go into the kiln for bisque, and out onto the work table for glazing, and back into the kiln. Minimize your steps. I’m basing kiln placement at least in part on visible electrical outlets. This room isn’t so large that venting couldn’t easily be run out the small back window from wherever it is. You will want to get some form of fireproofing to line the walls behind the kiln. Check local building code, but we’ve had cement board and sheet metal suggested for this. 6) Pots get moved into the office area for final storage before you either take them to a market or packed and shipped. Neither you or your husband wants clay or glaze dust getting into any electronic equipment, and foot traffic could drag that upstairs. I would strongly suggest having a pair of shoes that you put on when you go into the “dirty” side on the right, but that never cross the threshold going the other way. Some small rugs will be a good idea at the human door and the base of the stairs to limit tracking, and probably one at the slider opening.

The raised clay bins are really smart, and the light is really nice in there! As a fellow small space user, any time you can build wall shelves, do it. If you ever decide to go for making up some larger buckets of glaze, I keep mine in 5 gallon buckets and stack them on each other behind my studio door. I also made a conscious decision to keep the number of “big bucket” glazes to five or less.

I just remembered that last year Mea mentioned she switched from Weebly to GoDaddy as her blog and website builder. I just had a look at their pricing, and the non-shopping systems are all quite affordable. The one tier that offers e-commerce is comparable to both Square’s top end and Shopify’s most affordable. All 3 of the latter have comparable service offerings.

Wow! That article brings back the college memories! I do NOT miss the days of nonexistent glaze software access. So much fumbling! Thankfully, better starting points for cone 6 glazes have definitely come on the scene since. Tony Hanson’s stuff on digitalfire are great, but some Americans find those recipes need to be adjusted for crazing. John Britt and Joe Thompson (Old Forge Creations) are also good resources. Both Tony and Joe make a LOT of info available for free, John has a bit of a paywall for concise info. Re: wollastonite agglomeration. If you plan on using your glazes the same day they’re hydrated, you could get away easily with using plain sugar if you don’t happen to have sucralose lying around. I had concerns about possible bacteria growth, thus the suggestion for the artificial sweetener. It’s not a common practice. It was something we were noodling with at the time. We got you! You found a bunch of folks who do glaze chem and research for fun.

Suppliers in my neck of the woods tend to be sparse, consisting of Ceramics Canada in Calgary and buying direct from Plainsman in either Medicine Hat or Edmonton. A trip to Ceramics Canada tends to be not only a supply run, but a chance to catch up on clay community gossip as well. It’s a 20 minute drive for me, but I have to factor 2 hours, lol! The suppliers in Canada tend to work in community with each other, as I think I could count them all on both hands with a few fingers left over. The ones closest to me actually thrived during covid, because everyone was locked out of community studios, and people were looking for calming things to do during lockdowns. The suppliers had a big run on kilns and wheels, and Ceramics Canada started bringing in clay from Ontario as well. They went above and beyond with health precautions, so you had to call your order in and pay via credit card or e-transfer, and pick up your pile of stuff at the back door for a good year and a half. If people were mean about it, I didn’t hear.

I use a combo of resources, but I favour the written word. I have a handful of books that tend to run at higher price points, but consider to be invaluable, eg Hamer and Hamer. I consult it regularly when answering questions here, as well as using glazy for quick calculations and digitalfire for materials specifics and provenance. There’s a couple of good blogs that I regularly refer people to, because the authors talk about certain topics especially well, like Sue McLeod or Old Forge. I don’t use youtube a great deal, because I despise video tutorials. Scrubbing through a video for a specific reference requires my goldfish brain to remember too much about where exactly the reference I’m looking for came in the conversation. My adhd does not allow me to tolerate video pacing that isn’t almost professionally done, and that tends to be uncommon on a platform that doesn’t have a content time limit. I find I can use it as a personal resource if I up the playback speed, but for me to recommend a youtube video or channel to someone else, it has to have a LOT of compelling info in it.

When I asked the same thing about mine, Arturo at Cress said the first 2 numbers of a Cress serial number is the year it was manufactured in. So you have a proper vintage model there!

My personal opinion is that it’s not stupid if it works, but there’s probably a few reasons why it isn’t more common. Not everyone thinks in cross disciplinary/multi media terms. There could also be adhesion issues long term with putting paint on a smooth glazed surface to get that super mirrored look. I have not personally investigated this, and would suggest testing before making pieces for sale. Not everyone is good with spray paint, and can get a nice, no drip surface. Also, I haven’t seen too many non-industrial scale potters/ceramic artists making work like this. As a generalization, we tend to be drawn to the more “earthy” look of working with clay. Gold lustre use tends to be at least a passing nod to historical ceramic practices, if not a conscious continuation of them. Some people think cold finishes are somehow cheating.

I have seen people use waterproof packing tape to support moulds, in addition to mould straps. The trick is to make sure the tape is wrapped all the way around and stuck to itself, not the plaster. They explained that it was good because it doesn’t stretch. The straps are still necessary as a backup in case the tape snaps under the weight of the slip.

Hi and welcome! Gerstley borate is a great standalone brushing medium and would be added to iron to help make it more workable, and to dilute the amount of oxide you’re using. (Some oxide is good, too much can cause glazes to crawl over it.) I find iron mostly doesn’t need help fluxing, but other oxides may. if you want a green wash, don’t use the nickel. It tends to go brown. Copper carbonate benefits from some kind of flux with sodium in it to help turn it green. GB does have some sodium, but if you try it and find it isn’t enough, try mixing equal parts epk, copper carb and any Ferro frit you have to hand. 3110 would be ideal, but 3195, 3134 and 3124 would also work. The epk will help make this mix brushable and dilute it, and the frit will do the flux/colour change part.

I said, quick, lol!

If you can manage 5 kg of clay, I’d guess you’re at a point where you can you can attempt to replicate or make your own version of other pots. Try looking at some historical examples for inspiration, and see how you can modernize or put your personal spin on it. Holland has some notable history with tulipieres, so that could be a starting point. If that doesn’t appeal, lots of places have made assorted Meipyong or orb shaped jar variations that would make excellent canvasses for writing. The vases supplied by a florist usually are ones that are designed around more functional considerations than aesthetic ones, but small changes to proportions can make for a more interesting piece. You mentioned the possibility of a fruit bowl shape: a simple form like that with Swifty lyrics written in a spiral would be a very striking piece, and fairly straightforward to execute. Once you have your form chosen, there are lot of ways to possibly transfer your chosen lyrics onto the piece: if your handwriting is good, freehand it in pencil first and then go over it in glaze pencil or painted oxide. If you have my penmanship, you could project an image onto the side of the pot to trace, you could use a number of transfer methods using photocopies or printed materials to create a template you can go over. If you have simple printmaking materials available, you can create mono prints with underglazes or slips. Looking at your chosen clay body, you will want to fire it to the top recommended temperature to make sure the porosity of the piece is as low as possible. Mayco says your chosen clear can be used up to cone 10/1280*C, so you’re good there. The clay body does fire a bit beige/cream at that point though, so you may want to consider a white underglaze layer to pop any black writing.

If you know what bag you got your “gerstley borate” out of, there are some things you can do to figure out what it is. Gerstley borate is sort of a taupe colour, and could be confused easily for a ball clay. You can make test balls of the material and see how it melts/behaves in your bisque and glaze firing. That would give you a way of narrowing it down and making an educated guess. Melt flow test instructions here.

Joe at Old Forge Creations is also a UK potter who’s been doing a lot of work in the glaze community, and he does make himself available for some questions. He’s on Glazy and Instagram. I spoke with him, and he said he uses North American materials, which he says should be available, and he found the cost savings in converting recipes to UK materials to be negligible. He also recommended Linda Bloomfield as a resource if you wants to start with more locally based recipes. Joe has a big presence on Glazy (search Old Forge Creations), but his blog post on his First Five Ingredients glaze is here: https://www.oldforgecreations.co.uk/blog/first-five-ingredients-where-to-start-with-glaze-making. There are links to purchase materials for both UK and US sources. At a quick google search, I can’t find a website for Linda, but she has a significant profile on Glazy, and many published books and a youtube channel.

@CeramicHugs hi and welcome! The finish on those Shein pots is probably some kind of metallic spray paint, given the price point. Automotive spray paint would also fit the bill the OP was asking about. I didn’t think of it at the time. It should be noted that it would be a good option for ashtrays or vases, but not on any wares that would be used to hold food.

+1 for what akilpots says about boron and flux ratios. Your current 0.16:0.84 is likely not going to be durable, although that amount of calcium can skew that usual rule. I'd personally want it closer to 0.20:0.80 to start, and plan to adjust. I have 2 thoughts regarding your glaze materials choice and the logic: 1) I think you’re being penny wise and pound (dollar?) foolish by focusing only on material costs. If you have reasons like “it’s a challenge to see if I can do this” or “this material gives a specific quality to the end work I find valuable” then carry on by using the borax instead of a frit or other less soluble material. At that point, it’s a logical material cost. But consider that borax is cheap and plentiful, yet folks are loosing it because Gerstley Borate is going away again. There’s a reason for that: GB provides other materials to the mix, sure, but it’s also less soluble and easier to work with than straight borax. This brings me to… 2) That much borax (10% plus that much clay (25%) of any kind is going to significantly gel your glaze. At a glance, and just from a materials perspective, this glaze is going to be a pain to mix (wollastonite agglomerates) and will in all likelihood try and crawl off the pot while wet. This is going to lead to more testing to get your application down, and you’ll have to know how to change how the glaze flows without changing it’s specific gravity, or the amount of water in it. You may also find you have to calcine part of the clay, adding time and energy costs, plus testing time and probably a bottle of Darvan to your shopping list. And maybe some sucralose to help break up the wollastonite so you’re not spending hours with a sieve. (Here’s some work we did as a group to explain the sucralose thing.)

+1 for 60 being a LOT of glazes, and needing to narrow it down somehow. Glaze testing is indeed time consuming, and a lot of brushing glazes can start to look similar when used in combination, so 60 is going to give you a certain amount of redundancy. That’s not a comment on how people use them, it’s more that some colourants will simply overpower others, or if you combine 2 similar glazes, the difference on a small tile is going to be academic. As someone who hates doing testing, I suggest you DO NOT just use everything you have in all possible combinations and hope for inspiration. Choose an end goal, or at least an end ballpark. Without an effect in mind you want to achieve, you don’t really have a way to decide whether a test was successful or not, and that can demotivate a lot of people.

Weebly is still fine as long as you don’t want to add e-commerce. As soon as you want to start adding e-commerce via Square, it gets clunky and obnoxious fast, and the financial reports are limited when you try to integrate the two. Don’t let anyone talk you into a Square website if you want to improve that reporting. Their layout and tech support are both limited and abysmal. And their templates are mostly ugly. If you need e-commerce, bite the bullet, prepare to push it out enough to be profitable and go Shopify. Their back end is nice and straightforward, and if you need help tech support is amazing, even when you tell them you’re just on the free trial to see how the back end works, and won’t commit any time soon.

By creep, do you mean clay shrinking? If so, that can be measured. If you’re using a commercially prepared mix, your supplier can give you wet, fired and total shrinkage rates. It’s a good idea to verify those under your own making and firing conditions if you need precise measurements. If you’re mixing your own recipe, you’ll have to make a bar test and fire it anyways. This article from Digitalfire gives details on probably more test than you need, and you can probably skip the parts about wheel throwing and porosity. If you want more info though, there are other links at the bottom of the page to relevant topics. What Kelly is referring to is that on a curved mould or kiln support, if you form clay (or fire it) over a dome shape, the clay will shrink while the form won’t, causing the clay to crack. If the clay is draped or supported inside a bowl shape, your piece is free to move away from the walls of the support.

To round it back to AI, I think that all these personal experiences here about specific niches are why we aren’t in danger of being replaced.

I also have a Cress with this weird setup, but a slightly different model. And mine’s from 1984, not 94. Your infinite switch (the slow/normal/fast knob) may be aging, especially if you’re finding your kiln taking a longer time to get to cone 6. The elements being dark after 30 minutes on power level 1 are what I’d expect out of my kiln set on the lowest and slowest available. When I replaced mine a couple of years ago after I had some kiln issues, I found my kiln fired a lot faster than I had been used to. (Oddly, I didn’t have to replace my elements. Yet. Touch wood.) There was no obvious carbon or other wear indicators on the old one when I removed it, so it could be deceiving. I also had to source an alternate infinite switch than the original, because the OG isn’t made anymore.

I think you’re onto the right path with that. Next step is to test it.

@Piedmont Potterydo you find that the epsom salts affect how the reclaim throws afterwards? Or is it not enough material to affect the batch?

AI is only as smart as the dataset that it uses, and ChatGPT basically scraped the entire English speaking internet. I’m not surprised at that result. I’ve heard a lot of I present for other consideration Derek Au’s use of OpenAI (ChatGPT’s predecessor) 2 years ago to create glaze recipes. He trained it on Glazy’s dataset at the time, and came up with results that aren’t a terrible starting place. Given Tony’s article, I find it amusing that they turned out crazed and runny. https://glazy.org/posts/145412 That said, AI is *ideally* a tool to move you closer to the end point by doing some of the tedious work. Sure you can get ChatGPT to write an essay, or a glaze recipe, or a crochet pattern, or a social media post caption and you will absolutely get some hilariously, awkwardly bad results. But if you use those results as a scaffold to build on, it can be a huge assist. (Think using the resulting paragraph structure for anyone with learning disabilities or executive dysfunction issues, but they still have to edit for factual accuracy.) Or just a really fun evening laughing until your sides hurt at the comments section as you go through a tiktok account with all the results of Chat GPT crochet animal patterns. Long live Gerald and his friends! To quote the Guardian article above, “It came out shockingly very accurate while still being very, very wrong.”