Hulk

I brought in my herbs two days ago before the frost hit. My plants sit in my window. I can also see the ski runs on Red Lodge Mountain.
My cats and dogs come in and visit regularly. My studio is in a overside 2 car garage of the laundry room. It is very quiet here and I work in peace. I am posting a photo of a hanging pot drying to stein up and continue to form. It is a funny technique but I have saved some larger porcelain pots this way. It takes a few hours. I continue working on other pots while a clapping one regains it's strength!
marcia
 

… reflections on 61+ years in this life, local Public Radio, KPIG (also radio), mp3 library - all through 6.1 surround sound, the local birds (when door is open), passing neighbors, an' good ol' Jack the Nanday conure.
 

Old credit cards! Excellent scrapers inside glaze buckets, I also use for screening. Cut to any shape for custom jigs, shapers and trimmers. Clean off wheel head and clay tables without scratching.

Six years JohnnyK? Gettin' any mold yet? I'm using plastic one gallon size planters - drain holes taped- over pieces to slow drying, two and five gallon buckets over larger pieces; periodic spray of water arrests drying - mold begins to form after a week or so. The weight of plastic sheeting can distort/mar wet pieces - then I'm sad. Plastic sheeting, so many perils! ...wind, falling things, bump - oops, stick to wet clay, drying clay flakes off and blows aroun', etc. I do like the wet box idea, hmmm ...which involves removing from the bat. 
Other equipment/tools:
  Commercial grade mop, bucket and wringer
  Large (Hulk sized) sponges ("grout sponge" and/or large clean up sponge, car washin' sponge, etc.)  - sees all sponge work except where small and/or purpose cut piece of sponge is required
       Credit Bill Van Gilder on purpose cut sponge bits
  Inexpensive plastic calipers (leave the spendy metal ones in their case, in the drawer) handy for many things!
       "Standard" gallery/lid sizes (e.g. on the half inch - the only standard unit measurement in my studio!) - Bill Van Gilder on this one as well
       No guess foot trimming; get rim to inside bottom (millimeters for me), invert, trim - subtract overall from initial to get base thickness. You can tap, feel, just "know" if'n't works for you.

  Straight edges - an old hacksaw blade is about the right size for me, for most things. If straight, they stay straight (very little sag), light, rounded corners... handy!
  Rulers - six and fifteen inch stainless, inches and mm
  Hacksaw blade trimmers and chatterers - grind off the teeth, heat and bend, grind shape and edge(s), voila! A file touches up the edge just fine.
       Credit Hsin-Chuen Lin on repurposed hacksaw blades
  Pointer/pin tool ground from an old screwdriver. I like the handle, it's shorter than the pottery tool, it doesn't roll around, and easy to pick up.
  Light! Repurposed articulated arm desk lamp and clip on utility lights  put the light where I need it; overhead two tube eight footer doesn't hurt.
  Buckets and bins, lots. Each clay has slurry bucket for reclaim, a bin for dried/drying reclaim. There's a settling bucket for wheel and clean up water - use, reuse, reuse reuse…
  Ditto on shelving, lots! I've built one big heavy shelf along one side, which I've set two large bookshelves on (and pinned to the wall); there's enough room under said shelf to store five gallon buckets. Above that, track shelving; on the other three walls, more track shelving - adjustable, no floor footprint, strong.
  Quality dust mask - use it!
  Medium size "French" kitchen whisk fitted with pin for chucking up in the battery powered screw driver - whip that glaze!
  Medium size straight scraper for corners of glaze buckets, where that ^ whisk doesn't quite reach, corner and edges broken just enough such that glaze bucket isn't scratched.
  Tile grout mixer chucks up in half inch power drill, makes reclaim almost fun (open doors and windows to vent the ozone) - don't be huffin' ozone!
Oooh, there's prolly more, but I'd have to go look.            :O

Six years JohnnyK? Gettin' any mold yet? I'm using plastic one gallon size planters - drain holes taped- over pieces to slow drying, two and five gallon buckets over larger pieces; periodic spray of water arrests drying - mold begins to form after a week or so. The weight of plastic sheeting can distort/mar wet pieces - then I'm sad. Plastic sheeting, so many perils! ...wind, falling things, bump - oops, stick to wet clay, drying clay flakes off and blows aroun', etc. I do like the wet box idea, hmmm ...which involves removing from the bat. 
Other equipment/tools:
  Commercial grade mop, bucket and wringer
  Large (Hulk sized) sponges ("grout sponge" and/or large clean up sponge, car washin' sponge, etc.)  - sees all sponge work except where small and/or purpose cut piece of sponge is required
       Credit Bill Van Gilder on purpose cut sponge bits
  Inexpensive plastic calipers (leave the spendy metal ones in their case, in the drawer) handy for many things!
       "Standard" gallery/lid sizes (e.g. on the half inch - the only standard unit measurement in my studio!) - Bill Van Gilder on this one as well
       No guess foot trimming; get rim to inside bottom (millimeters for me), invert, trim - subtract overall from initial to get base thickness. You can tap, feel, just "know" if'n't works for you.

  Straight edges - an old hacksaw blade is about the right size for me, for most things. If straight, they stay straight (very little sag), light, rounded corners... handy!
  Rulers - six and fifteen inch stainless, inches and mm
  Hacksaw blade trimmers and chatterers - grind off the teeth, heat and bend, grind shape and edge(s), voila! A file touches up the edge just fine.
       Credit Hsin-Chuen Lin on repurposed hacksaw blades
  Pointer/pin tool ground from an old screwdriver. I like the handle, it's shorter than the pottery tool, it doesn't roll around, and easy to pick up.
  Light! Repurposed articulated arm desk lamp and clip on utility lights  put the light where I need it; overhead two tube eight footer doesn't hurt.
  Buckets and bins, lots. Each clay has slurry bucket for reclaim, a bin for dried/drying reclaim. There's a settling bucket for wheel and clean up water - use, reuse, reuse reuse…
  Ditto on shelving, lots! I've built one big heavy shelf along one side, which I've set two large bookshelves on (and pinned to the wall); there's enough room under said shelf to store five gallon buckets. Above that, track shelving; on the other three walls, more track shelving - adjustable, no floor footprint, strong.
  Quality dust mask - use it!
  Medium size "French" kitchen whisk fitted with pin for chucking up in the battery powered screw driver - whip that glaze!
  Medium size straight scraper for corners of glaze buckets, where that ^ whisk doesn't quite reach, corner and edges broken just enough such that glaze bucket isn't scratched.
  Tile grout mixer chucks up in half inch power drill, makes reclaim almost fun (open doors and windows to vent the ozone) - don't be huffin' ozone!
Oooh, there's prolly more, but I'd have to go look.            :O

Add to the list a good convertible horizontal/vertical  hand truck, especially if your clay in dropped by palette in your front driveway and you have gates too narrow for a skid lift!  
 
 
best,
Pres

How about a large plastic storage tub with lid made into a Damp Box? Mix enough potters plaster to make about a 2" layer in the bottom and after it sets hard, add a cup of water to the tub. (I add about a cup of water every 4 to 6 months and as long as I keep the lid closed, that's all it seems to need to keep things moist.)  I checked mine today and I have a pair of bowls that I threw in 2013 and they are on the damp side of leather hard...too soft to trim. I want to see how long I can keep them there before they start to fall apart. Place the box on a dolly from Harbor Freight and it can be rolled anywhere!

rolling bakers' racks with drywall shelves.  self explanatory.   too bad there aren't very many old refrigerators with wire racks in them.  i have about 18 and have not seen any more of them for years.   they are wonderfully useful for carrying pots after hot waxing and glazing to the kiln.   cannot use when the work is fired because the metal marks the foot. or foots?

The first thing I thought of was a paint sieve that fits on a 5 gal bucket.   I had bought several of them when I painted the house and had a extra one.  I tried one out when I was mixing a 3 gal batch of glaze.   I sieved it through the paint mesh before I sieved it through my 100# mesh sieve.   Doing it this way seem to make the whole process easier and faster.   They are also very inexpensive,  about $3 each.   For people who work with slabs a seam roller for wallpaper can help mesh your seams together.    A vinyl layout pad with measurement marks for fabric  can also be helpful for slab,  both are also inexpensive.    Denice

Hi folks, ONCE AGAIN, no new suggestions in the question pool. I will fall back on something touched on a while back, but maybe mentioned in a different way: What tool or piece of equipment non related to Ceramics would you recommend? 
All of you have probably heard me brag about my re-purposed  electric caulk gun, and the use of plastic plumbing parts for trimming chucks, or using bamboo kitchen utensils to make wooden ribs, or stick blenders for mixing glazes in the commercial ceramic sprayer. I will not go through these again. However, I would recommend that anyone getting into ceramics not waste their time on cheap shelving, as it can only lead to disaster when a shelf collapses from weight, or tips over for some reason. Years ago I purchased a few commercial grade shelving units from a big box store that would hold over 2k lb. in weight. This holds most of my dry glaze and clay materials without the worry of tipping or collapsing.  The other advantage of shelving for these heavy bags is to keep it off the floor to stay dry, and to save on my body when moving them around or filling bins etc. . That also brings me to another tie with the shelving. a good steady metal cart that allows you to move a bin under the bag, and cut the bag on the shelf to fill the bin.
 
Have a good day folks, and think about What tool or piece of equipment non related to Ceramics would you recommend? 
 
best,
Pres

Working with a coarser clay makes the smooth process  a little slower,  I got into coiling when I was in college.   I took a archeology class that was in a competition with other colleges to replicate  Anazai pottery.  It was held in the pottery studio and I was the only clay person in the class.  The professor taught the class how he thought they made the coiled pots,  I told him he was wrong  that the pots would crack and fall apart.   At the end of the semester we fired them in a trench firing,  my work come out fine the rest was broken shards.     I had a dozen pieces come out of the firing most of them quite large and thin walled.    The professor admitted I was right,  the archeology department  won the competition  with my work.   Denice

What's on my workbench? Nothing.  There is no worktable at the moment. Up until today--2 days before, 1 day of, and 3 days after the non-even craft fair, it was not available.   It has finally made it into the studio now, though half of the bins of the pieces are still in the trunk. The little sidewalk fair was fun-ish, at least talking with the other vendors who weren't selling anything either (no traffic). Not so great for the back/hip, so in the future I'll only be participating in venues that provide tables, however few that may be. And, DUH, I can't do anything, really, without my work table actually being in the studio, so there's that lost time as well!  Maybe tomorrow I can get up the steam to put my work space back together.   Updated, the last 2 pics-a day later- got my table back up, yay me for not procrastinating and laying about all day watching Nothing Gold Can Stay--an addictive Amazon series, just FYI.  

My shelves are filling up with green ware too - gotta bisque soon! ...made some room, drilled all the crazed stuff, put'm outside on the potting shelves (potting of plants) with raised bed mix + sand and succulent starts, aah, better! ...the repurposed crazies are mixed in with another project - cuttings and rootlings from front yard favourites for after the decimation to come, new septic tank and leach field. I plan to bury a few pots next to the new tank for the space alien archeologists to find in the far someday o' th' future.
 
Best wishes for your husband's complete recovery Denise!
...note to all anywhere near fifty, don't put off your scope session!! And for those +fifty, don't put off your follow up scope sessions!

New mugs, and a commission for tiny display dishes for a spice shop. 

My shelves are filling up with green ware too - gotta bisque soon! ...made some room, drilled all the crazed stuff, put'm outside on the potting shelves (potting of plants) with raised bed mix + sand and succulent starts, aah, better! ...the repurposed crazies are mixed in with another project - cuttings and rootlings from front yard favourites for after the decimation to come, new septic tank and leach field. I plan to bury a few pots next to the new tank for the space alien archeologists to find in the far someday o' th' future.
 
Best wishes for your husband's complete recovery Denise!
...note to all anywhere near fifty, don't put off your scope session!! And for those +fifty, don't put off your follow up scope sessions!

Good question - depends! Contemplating over the last few several days - where does the "compel" come from? Somewhere near the top of my list would be thrift and curiosity, also the wish to acquire mastery*.
In ceramics, all are factors for me; mixing one's glazes (should be) less expensive, where curiosity - how does it work - should be a help! How far to go? When the I'm getting the results I want, we'll just have to see from there, eh? So far, I have a few keepers: Wollastonite Clear looks like a home run on the buff, and particularly the red stoneware; Van Gilder's Teal Blue and Variegated; Lakeside Pottery Clear Blue. I want a few shades of green, a red, white, light blue, and clear that works on bmix and light red clays. Hooowever, throwing is the thing; if/when I'm ever satisfied with my throwing, mebbe time to quit. I'm just not finding a rabbit warren of throwing - there's studying how others do, and practice practice practice; there isn't much to read.
 
Other pursuits
   Literature - first degree, English lit, was curious what goes into making a good story. While I still enjoy stories - all kinds - and indulge in analysis (mostly kept to myself), I drifted away from serious study quite some time ago.
  Competitive swimming - over twenty years of coaching, and the decade of competition afore that, I devoured everything written about the sport, technique and training; I just wanted to know what worked and why, then see my team excel (which they did).
  Competitive cycling - there's much less technique involved, haha! I do all my own maintenance, because it's cheaper, and more consistent; it's not easy to find a good wheelbuilder, and if/when you find one, she/he will eventually drift away... A few years ago I ramped off reading everything I could get my hands on - didn't have any new questions, really, and interest in pottery had latched on 'bout then.
Good question - looking back, I've been actively researching something(s) for quite some time now; maybe it's just good for me to be trying to learn something new.
 
*Mastery, hmm, maybe I'm still trying to impress my Dad? Well, looking back, the subjects I dove into have something in common - I just love doing them, so put that inna ya pipe and smoke it!
 

My shelves are filling up with green ware too - gotta bisque soon! ...made some room, drilled all the crazed stuff, put'm outside on the potting shelves (potting of plants) with raised bed mix + sand and succulent starts, aah, better! ...the repurposed crazies are mixed in with another project - cuttings and rootlings from front yard favourites for after the decimation to come, new septic tank and leach field. I plan to bury a few pots next to the new tank for the space alien archeologists to find in the far someday o' th' future.
 
Best wishes for your husband's complete recovery Denise!
...note to all anywhere near fifty, don't put off your scope session!! And for those +fifty, don't put off your follow up scope sessions!

My shelves are filling up with green ware too - gotta bisque soon! ...made some room, drilled all the crazed stuff, put'm outside on the potting shelves (potting of plants) with raised bed mix + sand and succulent starts, aah, better! ...the repurposed crazies are mixed in with another project - cuttings and rootlings from front yard favourites for after the decimation to come, new septic tank and leach field. I plan to bury a few pots next to the new tank for the space alien archeologists to find in the far someday o' th' future.
 
Best wishes for your husband's complete recovery Denise!
...note to all anywhere near fifty, don't put off your scope session!! And for those +fifty, don't put off your follow up scope sessions!

I'm going camping this weekend and plan to bring back a bunch of decomposing bedrock.  I do some gold prospecting and so I always have granular magnetite but as I was washing a bunch of bedrock clay down the stream last time I thought hey I bet this would melt in a kiln!

I've got a pile of rocks, that I am "decomposing", to create some new clay.  I am a patient person...

From day one we busted open 50 lb. sacks of clay, feldspar, and grog to make stoneware, earthenware, porcelain, and raku clay. Same as per glazes, engobes, lustres, slips, terra sig.  In fact, the clay I’m using is mostly Kentucky Stone, about cone 8. Digging my own clay? It’s interesting but it rarely gets beyond bisque. On the other hand, I do make my own ash glazes, and  I usually have a few pounds of new ash annually for this. It’s a by product of fireplace, firepit

I follow the rabbit holes as I go.  If something interests me further I pursue it until it doesn't interest me anymore.  So recently my pursuit of DIY lustres came with a lot of research.  I figured there had to be a cheaper option out there that I could make myself.  There is and there isn't, but I'm still on it and still making them, mainly because I like the way the bright oil-like sheen looks on my pots.  It's subtle so I doubt anyone would really notice until I pointed it out, but they're cool!
Anyway, I don't mix my own clay for several reasons, the main one being there's very little cost savings and I have local access to beautiful pugged clays for dirt cheap.  I do mix my own glazes and make my own tools, but that's out of cost savings and control and not about returning to the roots or honoring my ancestors or whatnot.  
I like this hobby because you CAN go down these rabbit holes and come out understanding just a weeeee bit more about the different processes and how they interact.  But it's also awesome because everything is now set up to where you don't even NEED to know anything so just about anyone can hop on into the hobby with just a few hours of reading.
 

Chilly recently posted in the QotW pool: How far back/deep do you feel compelled to go in your pursuit of pottery (or insert another craft/art here)?
As I am not what you would call a purist, I do not mix my own paints, or inks, but use limited palettes that are expanded greatly by my skill of mixing color, when using watercolor or acrylics. As an art teacher, it was what I used, and knew.
As an art teacher also, over the years I became pretty acquainted with ceramics, and became most inclined to continue work with it. However, I have never been interested in pursuing the digging of my own clay, let alone the refinement of it. In the long run, I do what I did lately, bought clay! As far as glazes, I started out using studio glazes from my college classes. We were given a Nelson text to purchase, read, understand, but at no point in undergrad did we actually mix glazes. When starting to teach ceramics, as the teacher before me had used commercial glazes, I continued. However, he used ^06 clays and glazes, which I did not like to work with. He also used the crappiest of the Amaco white clays on hand. Yuch! When I started teaching all of the Ceramics classes as he was too busy with the other classes he taught, I moved everything to ^6. I started with powdered glazes, large lots, then as I became more secure, following grad classes, started mixing some from books, then started modifying these, and moved slowly into mixing all of the studio glazes.
I really am not interested in mixing my own clays, as I really don't have the room for this type of studio, and I am also content with what I am and do.
 
best,
Pres

Isn't it?  A family friend just had her knee replaced.  They cut her bad knee out. Cemented a chrome-cobalt knee in, stitched it up and they had her walking stairs 6 hours later.  Ridiculous

I am throwing molds for casting glass in,  I need around 65 of them and I am at the half way point  today.    My shelves are over loaded,  I need to do a bisque firing.  Stuck at home my husband had colon surgery a couple of weeks ago and has two more weeks of recovery to go.   We got the biopsy yesterday no cancer but has the DNA for colon cancer  so he'll have to be checked every year.  Modern medicine is amazing they can cut something out with a Robot, stitch it up and send you home the next day.   I can't even make a pot in that amount of time.   Denice