Rae Reich

It’s the .02-.03% additions that are the problem, not the 2%.

Contact Paper or peel-off labels. Labels come in various sizes and shapes as well as 8x10” uncut sheets that you can custom cut. Contact paper comes in a roll and is hard to keep flat for plates but curls nicely on cylinders.

You might be leaning horizontally onto your clay without centering the motion, that is, without making the center of the clay/wheelhead the endpoint of your lean. That would shove bat pins out of position.

Are you always using from the same supply of cobalt carb and copper carb? Is your higher-concentrate cobalt mixed from the same supply? I’m wondering if there’s some kind of contamination in them. Do you add anything to them besides water, to keep the oxides in suspension? Have you considered making ‘control’ batches using bottled or purified water, in case that’s the problem? Fixing your base glaze might not answer why the oxides act so strangely on it when that same base, without oxides, doesn’t crawl or blow out. Oxides alone don’t generally have that effect, as you know, and they aren’t behaving badly on the raw clay. Possibly irrelevant: the super-fluxed copper glaze screams ‘rutile’ to me.

Question: are single-fire potters less patient?? I can relate to wanting results sooner!

If there is another potter who has not made this mistake at least once, I’ll eat a bug! Testing and practice will get the results you want. Also, porcelain is often classed as a stoneware clay, so there could be porcelain in a white stoneware mix slip. It’s not a slip problem, it’s an application problem. You can learn to love this piece, even if didn’t come out as you planned, it has a misty quality.

Parmesan jar lids have holes already!

I’m guessing there aren’t many impatient potters

Note: @oldladyis glazing greenware, so wants to reduce the likelihood of overly wetting her pots’ feet. The carpet isn’t cushy enough, like most sponges are, to wet the clay where she doesn’t want it.

Be sure to check with Speedball about compatible clear glazes. I have had good results from mixing commercial stains and underglazes with the clear overglaze, but pinks are the most fugitive and temperamental, especially at cone 10 (oxidation, I presume). Test, test, test!

Turkey Retirement Home?

Watching Isaac Button (watched ‘em all, twice! How pleasant to see his smooth-running production.) it doesn’t appear that he’s having back problems when he moves and lifts and loads. He appears to be in his 50s or so. I think he has learned during a lifetime of pottery work how to use his body properly without straining. Too many of us are hasty with our young strengths and overextend, setting us up for years of doing it wrong. A good sense of balance and ‘centeredness’ surely helps too.

Nice construction!

A cone 06 bisque is so standard in pottery that few consider making this a variable. You can concentrate on the proper melting of your glazes by focusing on glaze composition and firing temperature/atmosphere/heat work.

Rather than building a wind-blocking wall that might interfere with kiln maintenance, I prop a couple of spare kiln shelves on the windy side. Loose stacking of cinder block can also work and the temporary wall can be relocated if the wind changes direction.

In Southern California elementary school in the 50s we learned to write the alphabet by printing and then cursive (my youngest grandchild, 21, cannot read or write in cursive ). We learned to fold, cut, color, draw, paste (yum!) and glue (Elmers doesn’t taste the same anymore, either). My Mom was ‘crafty’ and my Dad was a mechanic/woodworker. They grew up during the Depression, so making well and making do were basic understandings. I spent my free time making stuff, dolls and doll clothes and paper dolls with my best friend, and reading about making stuff. Sewing and cooking classes in 8th and 9th grade, wished I could take woodworking in High School, but that was for boys. I made a lot of my own clothes, also with a best friend (we wanted and needed to be original). Some Art teachers were inspiring and remembered fondly. I’m jealous of folks who had ceramics in high school. It wasn’t until my second attempt at Junior College, age 22, that I finally found my clay calling Hanging out with other clay people led naturally to construction, brick laying, booth building, photography, Volkswagen repairs, computer skills for brochures and flyers and accounts, and a sometimes economically perilous but fulfilling life of creativity.

Usually, peepholes only remain open in the early part of the warm-up, until all moisture has been driven from the wares, then the plugs remain in place for the remainder of the firing.

If you can still impress your clay with finger marks, it isn’t really leather-hard. Perhaps letting the slabs get a little more firm would help. @Pres’ suggestion of designing transition areas into your piece will allow joining to be integral, making the necessary into a feature. Sometimes, trying to make clay behave and look like not-clay isn’t worth the trouble - like trying to make a dress without the seams showing when seaming is part of the craft.

Jeff, do you place the grids so that air can come up under them?

I’ve only reconstituted commercial clay, but wonder if all the decanting of excess water isn’t also losing some fine particulates that would help plasticity?

Pre-drying the handles before attaching might be the cause. You end up re-manipulating the curve(s) to match the pot, which can stress the handle right where you rebend it. Try attaching and forming them when the clay is less firm, you’ll become accustomed to shaping the clay without deforming it. Drying upside down allows gravity to help the handle keep the shape and retards the drying of the piece. Covering with plastic is good if there are drafts. Not sure waxing is needed.

Looks like your glaze is a semi-matte or matte. The most reliable liner glazes are gloss/high gloss. I’ve found that unless you fire a matte glaze pretty high, so it gets a little gloss, it will not act nicely as a liner. Even if not obviously porous, they can eventually absorb odors.

Is the kiln electric? What cone is it fired to?

I like the sound of the effects you’re going for! I’ve had some success decorating under and over glazes with oxides and stains by mixing the colorants with (possibly thinned) glaze - either the same glaze or, if that’s too fluid, with a stiffer glaze. This helps the color meld better with the glaze, eliminating those rough spots that occur when oxides are applied too densely. Do some testing, applying them over and under your base glazes to see what variations you might want. I’ve used both clear and opaque base glazes added to the colorants, as well as whites with and without talc (which makes lavenders/lilacs of cobalt. My friend/mentor potter, Gary Zeiner, always added a pinch of tin to his signature blend of RiOx/rutile decorating oxides, so I do, too. I’m an Old School ^10 potter, so my base glazes for colorants are variants of 1-2-3-4 Clear, Watts White and MG2 matte.

@Min, do you throw standing up? What’s that tall thing that looks like a shifter beside the wheel pedal?