Callie Beller Diesel

@Finn Ewinsdo you by any chance have an Instagram or other suitable social media platform you could post a video on of what you’re doing? We could help you troubleshoot from that. The software that hosts the forum doesn't have the space for everyone to post video, so we need an outside link of some kind.

The most user friendly versions seem to be either Ravenscrag Slip or Alberta slip based, if you’re mixing your own. Ravenscrag can sometimes be interesting to get your hands on in the US, but many suppliers carry Alberta slip. Scroll down a bit on this page, and you’ll get the recipe plus firing and application tips for best results.

I’m going to tag @oldladyin on this. She once fires her work.

The difference is mostly in motor size. A and B models are for lighter duty, and C or CXC are more heavy duty. It refers more to the amount of clay you can put on them, rather than the amount of time they’ll run for. My college had Brent B and C models, and once you replace the pedal and get it running again, it will likely outlive you. To give you a frame of reference, in the linked thread where Mark speaks about the wear and tear on his wheels, understand he’s been ordering clay by the ton every year for the past 40+.

@nabarksdalehi and welcome to the forum! If the maker of a piece of pottery equipment is still in business, you can always email them for any manuals in the event they don’t just have them posted on their website. The resale market for pottery equipment is pretty lively, and you’re not the first person to need one. When I went to the Skutt website, they didn’t have any obvious links to manuals, so I’d just use their contact us form.

Most Canadian thing I’ve ever seen in a glaze room: hockey sticks (sans blade) used as stirrers for the big buckets in a city run arts centre.

I’ve found a few things over the years on handle attaching: 1. Slip vs water vs magic water: there is not a universal method. What works on one clay might not work with another. I’ve used white stonewares at cone 10 that needed slip and score, and red stoneware at cone 6 that wouldn’t grip for love nor money if I was using slip, but needed scoring and water instead. If one trick doesn’t work for you, try another. 2. If your handle and your mug body are at different stages of dryness, that’s the thing most likely to cause handles popping off in drying. 3. Wiggle that sucker on there! Whatever you use from step one, if you don’t wiggle the handle into the attachment point until it stops moving, it’s not attached well enough. If done properly, a handle will break off just outside the join rather than the join itself giving way.

I thought it had good possibility for plates and platters too.

I hate that a mobility aid would be considered a pejorative for anyone who needs them. It’s not stupid if it works. Ugh. I have seen people make devices for opening clay once it’s centred. The person I saw with it was more concerned with getting an even bottom than with saving wear and tear on fingers, but it would be an excellent arthritis aid. They take 1.25” or thinner pvc pipe parts, and make a square M shape. All descending parts are capped, and the potter holds the 2 outside pieces and drags the device towards themself themsef. so they can be dragged from the centre of the clay ball towards the potter. The descending piece in the middle is shorter than the two side pieces, and the difference in height winds up being the thickness of the bottom of the pot. If you didn't cement the pieces together, you could probably make it very adjustable.

I’ve seen a lot of mentions of the usefulness of the dollar store toilet brush. The only reason I haven’t tested it in person is because I wonder how easy they are to rinse or keep clean afterwards. How’s the cleanup on them? Currently I use the drill/paint mixing bit option for large batches. I also have a bunch of commercial kitchen sized wooden spoons with the corners on them to get into the bottom edges of the bucket, or for smaller buckets.

It’s important to note the difference between durable and toxic too. Before looking at the possible toxicity of the compounds leaching out, the fact that the dishes are being corroded by the comparatively weak acids in lemon means they’re not durable. Even if the glaze contains nothing that’s going to do any harm, if the flux balance and silica:alumina ratios are off, the glaze can still break down or be too soft for practicality in functional ware. Not enough people take into account that using too much of some of the ingredients that people have concerns about is just straight up impractical. Or expensive. Or wasteful. Double digit percentages of barium carb in a glaze is just overkill for colour response, and barium mattes are stupid soft and easily scratched. When you had the breakage tested, if the results came back non-toxic, it could just mean that however much of whatever was coming out of them might not have been enough to hurt you. Or it could be that whatever came out of them wasn’t on the list of things that would have been regulated for dinnerware in 1989. It’s a short list in North America: only cadmium and lead are on it as of this writing.

What @Bam2015said! Sometimes it’s just fun to do things. Being the business section, I do tend to frame my responses here within a business context. But why be in this line of work if you can’t have some fun too? It can be difficult to be creative without a sense of abundance or expansion, and as people we need that.

The picture is worth 1000 words, thank you! The little bubbles like that aren’t unexpected in a brushing glaze. From the looks of the online product description, it’s a fluid glaze, so they should heal over.

I do wonder about the Cress kilns on this. I have a cone 10 model that was made in the 80’s. One of those found second hand kilns that had been used 3 times by the original owner and stored ever since situations. I’m well over the 100 firing mark, and my elements are still going hard. I even bought all the backup parts to have on hand, but I haven’t needed to use them yet.

Not very. If it’s on high and you hear the relays clicking, 5-10 minutes for glow, and you’ll feel heat pretty quick.

I don’t know if it directly generates sales, but it can sure generate visibility and engagement with your customer base! It’s a really fun way to engage with your local community as well as the travel locations that artist seems to be focusing on. There is a miniature artist in my city who makes tiny items, and hides one of them somewhere about town on a specific day every week. He spends the week making the item and posting on instagram so that people get invested in it. When it’s done, he posts an image of the item in its surroundings with enough of a visual clue that if you know the city a bit, you know where to look. Usually the piece is found within a matter of an hour or two. I think he does sell a few items, but he usually only makes 2-3 pieces at once. But he did wind up on the Best in Miniature show on CBC Gem. It’s like the British Bake Off/Pottery Throwdown/Blown Away, but you build a miniature house with all the accoutrements. Note: while most of his stuff is food/kitchen/tiny furniture related, he did make his own pottery wheel and mini kiln. The resulting mugs and dishes the size of my pinky nail were among the items that got dropped off around the city, so there’s the pottery tie in!

I’m going to move this question into the Studio Ooperations section so it gets more visibility and response. Please keep us posted on how it turns out!

It depends on a bunch of things. How thick did the glaze go on in the first place, how even was his sanding, and what’s in the glaze? How fluid is the glaze, and does it in fact move, or is it a stiff one like a shino or a celadon? Also, what kind of sandpaper did he use, because there’s likely some shed grit on that surface now. Carbide or aluminum could have localized bubbling or refractor effects respectively, which may or may not be desirable. In any event, I wouldn’t expect a sanded version will turn out like the test tile at all. A tip that comes up from time to time is that If you’ve got a glaze that gets a bit foamy with stirring, you can spritz the surface with rubbing alcohol and the bubbles pop.

In a way, it doesn’t have to be that precise, but it depends for what. For most things, it’s all about proportions, and as long as you keep the ratios the same, it works out. That said, the smaller batch you’re making, the more precise you want to be. If you’re off by a few grams in a 10 kg/5 gallon bucket batch, the changes won’t be noticeable. But if you’re off by 0.1 of a gram in a 100g sample, it might show up more. And some materials will matter more than others. You’ll notice the absence of 0.1 %of cobalt, but probably not the absence of 0.1% silica. And just because there are exceptions that prove the rule, if you’re making a chrome tin pink, yes, that 1/100th of a gram of chrome difference will matter. Honestly, I just round any more extended decimal places to the nearest 0.1 of a gram. It’s impractical for me to measure smaller amounts for tests.

I agree with Bill. Better than what, and for what purpose? Sometimes if you’re having issues with cracking, especially if there’s more than 20% clay, calcining half of it will sort that out. But it does depend on the rest of the recipe.

Hi and welcome! Oh man. They both look older than dirt. Cool! The round one looks like it might be some kind of casting crucible, but I’d have to see the inside to be sure. Casting what? Dunno. Could be glass, more likely metal. Finding it with what does look to be a pottery kiln makes me wonder if someone was doing some kind of lost wax casting. Or if they just liked fire-based hobbies. In the first image I can kind of make out that the bottom (square) one has a label that might read Cone Art, which is a kiln brand made in Ontario. Tuckers is their main distributor. That kiln does have a cone sitter, which means it’s probably some kind of pottery kiln. Glass kilns don’t usually use pyrometric cones. If you can get an image of those rheostat knobs at the bottom, or if there are any other manufacturer’s marks that are not on that cone sitter (the black box), your best bet might be to email Tuckers to see if they know anything. If it’s an old Cone Art, they can give you specs.

Traffic and response well deserved. Thank you as always! Your generosity is very appreciated.

I second the notion that the lack of clay is going to affect your application, plus how durable the dried glaze is on the pot. It looks like an odd recipe to me. If you’re married to this recipe, we can help you tailor it, or I’ve got a few old ones in my books from college if you’d like to substitute. Or Glazy is always a great resource for new stuff, and it has the benefits of pictures that my glaze book doesn’t have. Traditional cone 10 celadons do look a lot better with a thick application. The ones I used personally were always dipped on bisque, and all contained clay. Those ones did benefit from the Epsom salts, so the drying was slowed, and application marks could smooth out. The ones I’ve used were not given to much movement in the kiln, so every drip showed. They were pretty user friendly to load though. If you’re talking about once firing traditional celadons that were formulated somewhere in ancient China/Japan/Korea, many kiln sites did single fire to save labour and fuel. But the recipes you’d find in North America for the last 50+ years reflect local practices and materials, and aren’t the same. If you do want to try once firing though, maybe @oldlady can give you better tips on that. She’s our local once fire person.

It’s also worth noting that the glaze is on an iron bearing clay of some kind. That will have an effect on how the glaze looks, and applying it to a whiter clay would maybe not have as much visual depth.

Dispex is what they use in the UK instead of Darvan.