Pyewackette

So @Min sent me down a clay-lined rabbit hole with this post: Thanks a lot! NO REALLY! I loves me a good rabbit hole. Turns out that stuff is FREAKIN' EXPENSIVE (but still interesting). The guy who is working on it says they would have to sell the porcelain version for "$150 a box". As far as I can tell, a box is 25 lbs (unless its something else close-ish to that in kg, he's Canadian). And the $150 is Canadian Money or about $118 in American Dollars. Still a LOT. The red earthenware version uses 1/4th the amount of frit so I assume its not nearly as expensive but probably still not exactly affordable. But it turns out, unbeknownst to me who has always been told "earthenware MELTS at higher than cone 04" - you can "overfire" MANY earthenware clay bodies to improve the absorption and increase strength/density. They will not (necessarily) melt all over your shelves. Or even bloat. Some even reach stoneware strength with near zero absorption by cone 2, sometimes even less. https://insight-live.com/insight/share.php?z=No2m98AEhJ On that page he gives a recipe for a terracotta clay body that he says reaches stoneware strength at cone 02. He formulates this as a casting slip but says I assume by "plastic version" he means something throwable? He says it fires to porcelain strength by cone 4. I love earthenware but have always been told it is impractical for utilitarian ware. Since this clay body is not available for purchase through his company (Plainsman Clay in Canada) I assume there is something impractical about it, like difficulty finding or formulating glazes that fit the body maybe. For many of the things I want to make glazing is not necessary. In fact, if a glaze crazes it might even be preferable as a decorative feature. I'm going to try to get the recipe for the clay booty I recently scooped up from the studio so I can try to figure some things out. Where do you learn this stuff??? WHY DOESN'T EVERYBODY WANT TO KNOW THIS STUFF??? I haven't had this much fun in decades ...

@Hulk My first car (that ran) was a 69 VW Fastback. I loved that car! She had a name. Lola. I was almost all set to rebuild her engine (I was just waiting to catch the Snapon Tool Man for the last tool needed) when I opened the trunk one day (in the front of that car) and I was looking at the tire, and it wasn't the spare. Turned out the only thing holding it together was the heavy duty trunk liner. Lola: RIP. Died of terminal rust.

@Denice Throwing, I'm good. I use very little extra water when throwing, which has helped a lot with the too-soft clay we keep getting at the studio. But trimming! Yesterday I was trimming a bowl-now-a-cactus-pot-because-hole-in-the-bottom and pieces were flying EVERYWHERE. WAY messier than throwing! But the tarps (and I have a lot of them already, assuming they didn't get left in the move) I have, so maybe that will help capture the trimmings. Or making a pan from a garbage can - I saw that somewhere or other ... BTW wetting my hands in the reclaim bucket is how I got that allergic reaction to somebody-or-other's lotion. Now I keep my own reclaim bucket and add it to the studio's when I'm done LOL! @Magnolia Mud Research That makes me think of the line from "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" where the Sherriff of Nottingham says "I'll cut his heart out with a SPOON!" "A spoon?" "Because it'll HURT more!"

LOL! But really ...

I LOVE how quiet they are. I can hear myself think! Are you sure you're not thinking of the VL Lite? That's the one I have at home. I've thrown more than 10 lbs (in the past, not back to that yet) on the Whisper and it was fine. The VL Lite will only handle 12 or 15 lbs ... What's a "pancake motor"?

Well that's a relief! I don't know why that bugged me so much but it REALLY did. Re "centering" I always thought that was a measure of the wheel capacity under its (presumably) greatest load, when you are likely applying the most force to the (semi-)constant load of the clay itself. Its my understanding that the WHISPER DAGGUMIT THAT'S THE NAME can really only (reliably) handle about 50 to 60 lbs of clay but I figured that's not very important because who throws that much at once anyway??? Like 3 potters in the entire country maybe and they don't "throw" as far as I can tell, they throw the bottom and then coil-build and smooth until its as big as they want it. Or they throw in sections. As far as I know, which may not be all that far. I mean I aspire to throwing Big Pots but I have trouble imagining how Big a 50 lb Pot would be. But yeah there are other issues about how a wheel handles a load besides centering. Like, how responsive is the pedal, and whether it lugs under certain conditions, and other stuff I'm not really very well versed in. I need to go re-read the threads about wheel comparisons, now that I might remember more of it LOL!

Two hands, two eyes, and my brain (such as it is). That said I have serious tool lust and I've got a rolly-grocery-cart load of stuff I schlep back and forth to the studio. Working on my next Bailey's order.

I'm nowhere near as experienced (or skilled) as any of you guys, but I like a foot on the bottom of pretty much everything, both as a potter and as an end user. I would never buy a mug or bowl or anything else that just had a flat bottom. That's too much contact with the table for one thing. I actually have a NICE table that I wouldn't want to risk marring. The foot also gives you a stand-off when your cup is full of hot tea or coffee or toddy. Flat bottom? 100% you need a coaster for that. Even cold - condensation on my mahogany table? GET THEE BEYOND ME SATAN! I don't know why but I DO like trimming. And while I'm a pretty neat thrower, turns out I'm a VERY MESSY trimmer. Not sure how that's going to work out when it gets cold and the wheel has to come back inside. Now if I could just get my foot trimming mojo back. Yesterday I (accidentally) turned a bowl into a cactus/succulents pot.

They changed all their model numbers and apparently there is at least one totally new wheel: The former Whisper is now the RK-3E Pretty sure I'm at least 2 models behind, now its the RK-3D . The last model I remember is the RK-2. I guess its upgraded? Or at least not the same as it was most recently? Whisper-T, not sure where this is coming from at all. It appears to be an uglier, less capable version of the former Whisper-now-RK-3E. It has two tiny tabs at the sides instead of an actual workspace and a smaller motor (300W vs 400W and why are we talking W instead of HP?) Former VL-Lite, now the RK-55. Former Aspire, now the RK-5T/RK-5TF, depending on whether it comes with a foot pedal or a hand lever thingy. Oh and it weighs 26 lbs and they claim it will center 22 lbs. Not sure if that's a new claim but its a ridiculous claim regardless. You're not going to center nearly as much as the wheel weighs. Can you say "see the wheel slide off the table"? LOL! Well actually you'd probably just end up with a lap full of clay. OK OK, most likely just a stopped wheel head. As far as I can tell the wheels formerly known as Whisper and VL-Lite haven't changed (not sure about the legacy format of the RK-2/10/3D or the former Aspire). And the "Whisper-T" doesn't seem to have a reason for existing. Also why is it now the ONLY model that doesn't have a number? I would guess they're trying to associate it with the more capable as far as I can tell former Whisper-now-RK-3E? I don't know quite why I find this so very off-putting but I do. Now we have a bunch of models with designations that are too close for comfort. It was easy to differentiate between the Whisper, the RK-10 (could have called it Shimpo Classic but whatever), the VL Lite and the Aspire. Numbers are not better than names. Except for the odd man out, the "Whisper T" which I am thinking they are trying to associate with the Whisper that doesn't exist in name any more. Pretty sure that is purposefully intended to confuse. And I can't tell for sure what else might have changed. It just popped up out of the blue. The Whisper/RK-3E still apparently centers 100 lbs (allegedly), but the "Whisper T" doesn't indicate ANYWHERE what its centering capacity with the smaller motor is. I checked their promo literature AND the manual itself, they don't say. I did find an Australian site that says it centers 88 lbs. I sort of doubt it is that close in capabilities to the Former Whisper. But you sure can't tell from their description, they don't even use the same terms or categories (plus total failure to mention centering capacity.) They do both seem to be direct drive. "Turn and face the strange"

I beg to differ! YOU'RE in there!

Butter Butler? Maybe with some creative sculpting or glaze work? Now don't go and trademark that!

Too cold (for me) today to work outside, plus I forgot to grab a bat while I was at the studio yesterday. The high today will be 70 (still chilly to my mind) and it won't hit that until 6PM. But they are projecting a high of 93 for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll remember to grab a bat tonight. (Of course I WILL ask first). I think there is a cat living in my brush pile ...

A treadle wheel would certainly be useful if you're working somewhere where there isn't any power. Say a shed, or your patio or porch (if there are no outdoor outlets there). Or your survivalist compound. Like that.

Here is the view from my Summer Studio (on the back porch). Yes that's a pile of brush. I cut down a Holly tree that was crowding the eaves awhile back because (a) it had been hacked into pompom shapes at some point and (b) it was too big for where it was at even if it HADN'T been turned into a monstrosity of psudeo-topiary. I'm working on it. I am building a beetle bank as I cut it up into smaller pieces. I'm only recently beginning to be normal, health-wise, again. And those are my curry leaf plants - what's left of them after 6 months of torture - in that cage to protect them from the blue jay that has developed a taste, apparently, for Indian herbs. @Hulk my orchids got left behind in the move. I'd had them for 3 years. Poo! (I had been painting, that seemed like the never-ending-renovation) They bloomed every single year. I can't believe that's the only picture I ever took of them. I miss my orchids! Still haven't found my bats. I was hoping there was at least one in the box with the wheel, but NOOoooOOooOoo! I'll have to borry one from the studio until I find mine or get some, or I break down and make the hardiebacker bats I've been threatening to make. They're cut. I just need to measure for the bat pins, find some tubing as hole protectors, and Do It. And here is what I have to look forward to when it gets cold again: Minus the washing machine and accoutrements which are going next to the kitchen sink. It's a little Magic Chef portable washer, the middle sized one. The whole room is all of 6'x6.25'. No windows. Barely any space at all. There is a utility tub on the wall to the left in the garage so there is that. So yay! Guess which space I prefer!

My little purple cup with the blobs at the bottom from runny glaze - the liner glaze crazed but I didn't notice until enough tea had gotten in there to stain the cracks. However my tea is just tea - no milk, no sugar - so seems unlikely to grow bad stuff. I wouldn't sell it (well no one would BUY it, but you know what I mean) but I continue to use it - for now. Eventually I'll have so many not-that-great cups and mugs that it'll get tossed and replaced with something slightly better that hopefully won't craze, like whatever glaze they settle on so we finally have a cone 10 liner glaze that won't craze LOL! That looks sort of like pinholing, which for some bizarre reason seems worse to me than crazing. I would toss that anyway. Not logical - crazing gives you the same sort of exposure to bugs and fungi and mold as pinholes - but I hate pinholes more.

@oldlady No wars here, and if there were, it wouldn't be you who started 'em, LOL! I tried to be complete for anybody who needs the information but if you don't need to crop, just skip that step. For most pictures taken with a cell phone camera reducing to 25% of the original size will be just fine. The last two pictures I posted were reduced to 50% for the first of those 2, and 25% (75% total reduction) for the second. I can't tell a difference between them. Of course it depends on how large they were to start with. BTW - my avatar? Made in Gimp over a decade ago from an original drawing of mine that I scanned and processed. Clearly my drawing skills are not all that, but I still like it.

@Pres Gimp is a professional level program. But its a bit much for the non-computer person. The most recent versions have gotten a bit complex even for people who have used it for years. I absolutely encourage its use for anybody with enough tech savvy to do so. Just not a solution here. It'd be like nuking a fly, LOL!

BTW I totally forgot, one of the functions I was asked about was how to rotate pictures that end up sideways. It's easy to do it in Photo and I won't go into that for anyone who already knows how to do that, but it can be done in Paint pretty easily as well and here is how (IN PICTURES): Make sure the HOME tab is active (click on it if you're not sure) Then find Rotate under the list that goes Crop - Resize - Rotate and click on Rotate to bring up the rotation popup menu. If you have a sideways picture you're going to want to rotate it by 90 degrees. If you pick the wrong direction at first it is no big deal, just click the same rotation until its oriented the way you want it. And for anybody - anybody at all - having trouble with something computer related like this - if you don't want to risk some youngling's dismissive everybody-knows-how-to-do-that attitude, PM me. I'll help you straighten things out. EVERYTHING is easy once you know how to do it. I won't have access to the newest version of Word but I have older versions on several of my older PCs. I've never been an Excel user so I can't be much help with that. And I can't promise to help with sophisticated programs - I'm at least 20 years behind on Photoshop and at least 8 years behind on GIMP (though since GIMP is free and I'm about to have a new PC I MIGHT be able to come back up to speed on that) but with anything less specific I will help however I can, without the risk of sneerage LOL! And just let me make time here for a little bit of definition. A FILE is a document or photo of any sort, including programs. It is any one thing on your hard drive. A FOLDER - think of manila folders like you put in a filing cabinet. It is a specific place where files are stored. It is itself a specific type of file, one that tells you where to find OTHER files. In the real world you might have many documents, say lecture notes. You would keep those in a manila folder that is labeled with a name that makes it easy for you to find again. Then that manila folder would go into one of those green hanging folders with other folders that might have related information in them. Think of the files and folders on your computer as the components of a literal, real world filing system, where the PC is your file cabinet. Think of the individual hard drives as the individual drawers of a file cabinet. These will have names like C: D: F: So C:\Users would then be the User folder in the C: drawer. It will have a file icon next to it in Windows Explorer. If you click on it to open it you will see more folders and maybe a few files (which will NOT have a folder icon next to them and MAY have a suffix attached such as .jpg for a picture file, .docx for a Word file, etc.) The thing is that Windows as shipped nearly always has the suffix obscured which I find less than helpful but you can tell the difference between another folder and a terminal file (eg a document, photo, or program file) by the presence or absence of the folder icon. Each folder is just the electronic representation of a folder in a real-world file cabinet. Each terminal file is the electronic representation of a single entity such as a document, a letter, a photo, a movie, or a song. I hope that hasn't made things clear as mud.

IF you're happy using Paint 3d, have at it. Personally I HATE it and I was specifically asked by another forum member for info on how to do this. If you don't need the info, why grouse about those who do? The story in pictures was in response to someone asking for exact directions. My directions in English were not clear enough for someone who is not comfortable with computers and software.

OK, part 2 of the Paint tutorial - how to use Paint to open a file. Click on the FILE tab Which brings up the file popup menu. If the picture you are after happens to be in the list of recent photos, click on the title. You're home free. If not, click on the OPEN button to bring up the file browser. Use the file browser (aka Windows Explorer) to browse to wherever your pictures are. All of mine that I care about are currently on the Desktop because this ISN'T my computer so I keep them where they can easily be deleted whenever I finally get my new PC hooked up and my poor son gets his laptop back. So just select whichever photo you want to smallify by double clicking on it as usual. If you click on the drop down next to the picture icon (circled in red) you can select thumbnails/icons to make it easier to find your pictures. I picked Gecko My Gecko for our example picture because I'm that much of a narcissist. Here it is in its full ginormous beauty: So this thing is enormous at 4120 x 3096 pixels and 3.3MB (Paint shows photo dimensions and file size at the bottom, circled in red - note that it DOES NOT UPDATE these values until you have saved to a named file). This is more than 3x the max allowed to upload for an entire post. ALL your files in a post have to be less than a total of 1MB in size. So lets SMALLIFY! First lets get it to where we can actually see it to work on it. Go to the VIEW tab (cirled in red) and click on ZOOM IN however many times it takes to get it fully on your screen, but still big enough to see what you're doing. Note the caret I circled at the top far right - if you are on a stinky little laptop screen like I am, and you just don't have enough space to see the whole image because the stupid Paint zoom function doesn't have the granularity to let you get it just where you want it (it only zooms in and out preset amounts), you can click on that caret and it will collapse the menu to give you more space for the image. The tabs (File, Home, View) will still show and you can bring the icons back by clicking on the caret (which will now point down) again. Gets you a little more room to work with when you need that. So now you can see the whole picture but its still ginormous. Now lets start smallifying! NOTE: If at any point you accidentally move or cut something, HIT CTL-Z. It will save you. It will undo whatever you just did. In this case there is a lot of extraneous stuff that nobody needs to see. Well actually probably nobody needs to see Mr. Gecko either, but for sure all the studio mess is altogether unnecessary and uninteresting. So lets start by cropping. Click on the HOME tab so we can get back to work. First we are going to SELECT the area we want to keep - everything OUTSIDE the area you select will get deleted. So first click SELECT - that will give you a crosshair that you will use to draw a rectangle around the area of interest. I start at the upper Left corner, you can start wherever you want but that's just what I do. You position the crosshair where you want to start and then push the left mouse button and HOLD while dragging the mouse to draw that dotted white line around the area you want to keep. Let go when you have it how you want it. You can't change it once its drawn but you can throw it away and start over - just click once anywhere outside the selected area and start over. When you've got it how you want it, hit CROP (purple circle, the last thing you will do in this step). So now its been cropped, and saved so we can see how far we've come. OK we've cut it down from 3.3MB to 777KB (about .78MB) which is TECHNICALLY smaller and will fit under the 1MB limit as long as its the only picture you're posting - but there IS a lifetime limit for all attachments (uploaded photos to the forum) so I would suggest you may not want to leave it at that. I don't remember the exact lifetime limit but given the high probability that the forum will probably change before most of us hit that anyway, I won't go into how but you CAN if you want go back and delete photos to free some of that space up. But it is way easier not to risk hitting it to start with, so let's smallify it some more. We will do that by actually resizing it next. Staying on the Home tab; Click Resize to bring up the Resize popup menu. Make sure Maintain Aspect Ratio IS selected (has a check mark in the square). You can do this either by percentages - which I use, its just easier. I use 50% unless text is involved - text can get hard to read at that level, I usually go for 70% if there is text. YMMV. NOTE THAT if you want to do it by absolute pixel size, all you have to do is click on the empty circle next to the PIXEL label and it will display in pixels, see this post for a picture of that. Click OK when you've got the values the way you want them. Ignore the sizes circled at the bottom, I changed these pics a lot while writing this tutorial up and they're not meaningful any more. I resized the picture to 50% and saved, then resized again another 50% and saved again. Here are the pictures and I doubt you'll see a significant difference between them except for the file sizes: First resize to 50% = 1381 x 793 pixels, 267 Kb Second resize by another 50% (75% total) = 691 x 397 pixels, 92.3Kb To save you would select the FILE tab and I always do SAVE AS and pick Jpeg as the type, otherwise it defaults to png. If you just pick SAVE it will try to save it over the original file, but it will ask you first. If you want to save to a new file name still pick SAVE AS and if you don't pick a file type it will automatically save it as png with whatever file name you choose to give it. Does that help? Pye

@oldlady No problem! We can tell the story in pictures. I'll start from the beginning for those who don't have Paint already on their toolbars. I'll have to do this in two posts because the limit is not just 1MB per picture, it is 1MB per POST. Note that I use a dark theme so the background on your own computers will look a little different (unless you, too, have turned to the Dark Side MWAH HA HA HA HA!) So first lets find Paint on your computer. Go to your toolbar and click the magnifying glass icon: Type Paint in to the search field (see red circled areas below). Then Right Click on the program Paint represented by the palette icon. That brings up a popup menu where you can pin it to your start menu or to the taskbar, I arbitrarily chose the task bar. That will put it into the bar at the bottom of your screen. See the first post for how to get a shortcut on your desktop. It will put it last on the toolbar, you can move it if you want by left clicking it and dragging it (hold down left click and move the mouse) OK Now you have access to Paint! Now just click on that as usual to run it. It will open the program with the Home tab activated. That little white box is your canvas - I size that to be really small (using the Resize option, see next post) so that when I copy something in (using CTL-A to select all then CTL-V to paste in whatever image I copied before) it will resize to the size of the image so I don't get white space. If you DO get white space for some reason, just immediately click CROP after you do your paste and it will crop to the size of the image you just pasted in. OK now we all have access to the Paint program. How to use it coming up in the next post. I don't know why but it keeps putting an extra picture here at the bottom that doesn't belong. I've deleted it THREE TIMES. Just ignore anything after this text.

@oldlady You can still use pixels if you want to. When you click on resize just select the radio button that says Pixels and it will switch to that. Sorry if you actually already know how to do that and just have been choosing not to. This is one of the few things I can actually help with around here, I was a software engineer once upon a time. LOL! Pye

I've been asked to write a short tutorial for how to do this under Win10. No really! Seriously I totally understand why this has become an issue under Win10 for people who managed it just fine previously under Win7 (I actually have computers that still run Win7, and even a micro laptop that still runs Vista). I immediately had issues with Paint 3d, the dumbest damn piece of crap software I've ever been forced to deal with. Well one of, anyway. Turns out - Paint is STILL on Win10, they just hid it. So - I'm assuming folks used to use Paint to resize their pics, I know I always have (do). On that assumption here is how to find Paint on your Win10 system. Yup. It's still there. The MicroSoft folks just hid it from us, maybe they were embarrassed! Click on the magnifying glass icon in the toolbar at the bottom - it is the second icon from the left (right next to the Windows Start icon). Type in Paint. Paint will appear in the list of found items. You can pin it to the start menu, or to the taskbar by right clicking and selecting one of those options. You can create a shortcut on the desktop by left clicking on the desktop, select New, select Shortcut, enter %windir%\system32\mspaint.exe , click next, name it Paint or whatever you want to, then it will place that shortcut on the desktop. Now just copy-paste the image you want into Paint (or open the file if you have a local copy), select all, and use the resize option just like we have been doing for 90 bazillion years. Save. Eh voila, your photo be SMALLER. Anybody need more info than that, I will happily provide. Pye Fellow hater of Paint3d