liambesaw
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Posts posted by liambesaw
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Was kind of busy last week with trying to bisque a lot of the stuff taking up space, I got a lot cleared out, some winners some losers. Here are some of the winners, a new glaze combo I really like. I call it rotten melon
- dhPotter, Bill Kielb, oldlady and 4 others
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The thing about size for me, is that I find it annoying to center anything from about a pound and under. 15lbs? No problem, 12 ounces? Why bother. So if I am going to do some smaller items I will throw off the hump just because it's so hard for my big hands to center anything that small. For mugs and bowls I'll do chunks of 1lb, still takes a minute to center sometimes. I do love making a nice big pot though, something alluring in making something that big even though it's useful for nothing.
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I might bisque it this weekend, i might end up candling it overnight though, it's pretty thick since it's a planter. I'd say almost a half inch on the bottom, sides are more like a quarter inch. Looks dry though! I have a group of larger pots, hopefully I can fire them all at once.
Got another commission today, besides the strawberry planter. This one is for a big boy cereal bowl. Supposed to be between a mixing bowl and a normal cereal bowl. Pretty confident I can nail that one, haha
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6 minutes ago, Min said:
For me it was my mixer pugmill. It was a big chunk of money and in my mind I couldn't justify buying one for many years. Then I tore off the long head of my bicep in my right arm (turns out you shouldn't try and outdo your niece while tubing) and I fully realized how much wear and tear making pots for years can do on your body. My shoulder and arm healed up, bicep is as strong as ever but having a machine to do some of the grunt work is something I wish I'ld been able to buy much earlier on.
Waiting for a cheap or broken one to show up on craigslist haha, probably will never happen
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1 minute ago, oldlady said:
i gave up using red clay because of the mess. i could not get it out of my many wrinkles without bleach. white clay is so much neater, (unless you put the throwing water on top of the wheelhead and accidentally hit the pedal.) do not ask how i know this.
Haha, yeah I've had my own runaway wheel issues! My hands are stained red, going to be awkward if I ever get caught committing a crime.
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1 minute ago, oldlady said:
looks good! and, just think, you get to clean up a splash pan that is easy to clean! woohoo!
My goodness it's so easy, lift up the wheelhead and pick up the pan like a bucket and dump straight into the reclaim. Before I had to haul a bucket over and scoop everything out one handful at a time.
Now I'm self conscious about my splash pan hygiene haha, I thought everyone's looked that bad after a session!
- Rae Reich and Bill Kielb
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Well I only finished 15 bowls, but I got distracted. A co-workers wife wanted to know if I could make a strawberry planter so I am giving it a shot. I think I should have used more clay, I used 15lbs but it seems small to me, I'm gonna be throwing the bowls for the side tonight and attaching them and see how it goes. Might be able to get some of that Microsoft money I've heard so much about around here! Hah
I will say, I wouldn't have been able to do this on my old wheel, I had to stand up to pull on this one, it was 2 feet tall at one point! Loving my new wheel
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12 minutes ago, Benzine said:
$130-40 might seem like a lot for a Giffin Grip, but it's well worth it. They will essentially last forever, and definitely speed up the process, especially with the health concerns you mentioned. Definitely a justified "splurge" purchased.
But... But... My carefully honed tap centering skills and multitude of trimming Chucks would have their feelings hurt... Don't hurt Chuck.
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I recently bought a new wheel, going from a 1960s shimpo rk-2 to a new tank/Skutt prodigy, which is their entry level wheel. The difference in throwing between the two is like night and day. Previously I was quite happy with my rk-2 since it was the only wheel I had used in school and once I bought my own, but its got me wondering now... What else am I missing out on? Is there some piece of equipment or tool that made such a huge difference to the quality of work, and quality of time, that you wished you had found out earlier?
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56 minutes ago, Hulk said:
You gonna like dat'n! ...err, you prob'ly a'ready do; your foot's gonna like't too!
,)
My experience, Skutt honors the warrantee from time of shipment to retailer; they can tell you the date, should you wish to ring'm up.
Should you ever get clockwise, it can be done simply enough - reverse'n' wires.
It's like night and day, no more fighting the ring and cone drive... Feels like heaven.
It has a small splash pan but it's so easy to clean
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Welp, I've been on the lookout for a decent deal on a wheel and I found a brand new Skutt prodigy for 650. Couldn't pass it up. Got it set up tonight and wow what a difference. Anyway, threw another 9 bowls, I think I've got it now! I think I'll have enough for a kiln load by the weekend haha.
- Rae Reich, Bill Kielb and Benzine
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26 minutes ago, Benzine said:
You poor soul! My Wife and I spent many of our years together, both dating, and marriage, without a dishwasher. We finally got one a few years ago, and things are soooo much better, especially with tiny people running around the house!
Great bowls by the way. Those appear to be glazed versions, of those I commented on earlier. The rims look thin, from certain angles, but it could just be how the photos were taken.
Yep the rims are thin, my wife likes the entire bowl as thin as possible, and since she's my only customer right now, she gets what she wants!
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29 minutes ago, Bill Kielb said:
Lemon test usually meaningless, put it in your dinhwasher 30 times. Actually I would just line it if I were to let my pooch drink from it. It’s obviously artistically melted but I would never assume it to be durable. No lead or cadmium though so there is that.
We don't have a dishwasher! The only colorants are 3 copper, 1.5 cobalt, 6 rutile and of course the magical 14 titanium.
I usually use my 20x5 + zircopax and titanium as a liner, works great!
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Just now, Bill Kielb said:
Hmm, looks like Fido could use a liner glaze, maybe a durable 04 lowfire fix.
Could be! It's just a glaze test though. I'll do a lemon test on this one, I've heard of SCM causing normally durable glazes to be underfired. These titanium crystals are insane though. Love the look!
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So out of my glaze tests, this combo was the most promising. My other glazes didn't really respond well to SCM, at least not in a beautiful way.
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41 minutes ago, Benzine said:
Simple, but effective.
Did you switch clay bodies?
Yeah, I grabbed the wrong box last night and didn't feel like hauling it back inside. This red clay is a lot smoother than my yellow stuff, so I can't complain too much. I like both equally, it just takes a few days before my throwing water and wheel turn colors
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29 minutes ago, Benzine said:
@liambesaw Nice bowls! What did you use to "square" off the sides?
Thanks! I just pulled the rim out on opposing sides
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27 minutes ago, Mark C. said:
Tiles are the start for me than a spoon rest or sponge holder-Before sellable larger forms-then a mug well you can see the work up
Under these is strontium crystal magic, just want to see what they'll do on a vase, I already know what they do on their own and with each other, the SCM is the only unknown here. I'm firing it on a waster so it should be a lot of fun, muahahahah. Made this picture so I can remember what went where on the dang pot since it's a harlequin of sorts now with overlapping colors.
- Babs and Bill Kielb
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2 minutes ago, Mark C. said:
Work bench is now empty after packing two kiln loads-packed up my small toyota bed full with pots in boxes and dolly and took a dozed boxes in to two outlets (both consignments)
Also finished up packing a 5 k whole sale order which I droop off in Santa Rosa. on way south to SF to take my wife to her 6 week doctor check up after hip surgery.
I'm also taking down 1bout 1200 # of scrap metal sorted into 17 different sorts-red brass-yellow brass-100 # lead ingot -400#s of wire -clean to insulated-all sorted well
dirty brass clean and dirty copper-you get the idea no steel all higher qualities -wire is from 30 years ago working as a sparky.
Lots of the brass is from shipwrecks over the past decades-all scrap no nice items.
I did this sort last summer and my electrician friend has yet to take it so I'm making this a multi pot's .metal, doctor run, also bringing back a copper dive helmet and some fish prints.
Liam said (I mixed up a couple new glazes and sacrificed a few pots to see what they'll look like.)
test tiles are easier than pots especial for 1st tests
I lost a good friend about over a year ago and yesterday I finally started to empty his pottery shop. He was my salt kiln partner.
I am cleaning it out for his widow. mush of whats there came thru me to begin with. I worked on his glazes for many hours and brought home what I can use and we poured the water off the rest to dry them out. I am going to take the whole lot so she can have a two car space back in a ship building.
I processed a large truck bed full today at my studio.This is a huge job and since he once was doing raku and low fire it complicates the mix. I am going to try to donate all the low fire to a school and will give some clays away as well. I found him the Geil kiln and we will deal with that later-I also brought him a small electric from one of my AZ show trips 10 years ago and he has a 3 zone new skutt electric which will also sell in the future year after the shop gets cleared out and some time goes by.All the kilns are in a new connected large kiln room-finished out with painted sheet rock.He fired the gas kiln twice.
This is familiar as I have bought out 2-3 living potters in my past but this is good friend and much of what I'm moving I have handled before. It sad but I promised when she was ready I would do this for her.
The clay and glaze and material alone will be 4-5 truck fulls.I will take a month or more to work thru this.
My work bench today had all his stuff on it but now its found a new spot in my stuff.
I don't know about you, but I've never had a test tile come out the way it comes out on a pot. Since I'm testing these glazes for a specific set of pots, I threw a few smaller but the same shape just for testing the glaze, hard to translate a tile onto a large vase. I do use test tiles for experimenting with glaze recipes, nothing works better for line blends or small adjustments.
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Today I mixed up a couple new glazes and sacrificed a few pots to see what they'll look like. Doing a glaze firing now, it should be cool enough to open up and take a look tomorrow night!
This week I will go back to trying to throw repeat bowls. I need to step up my bowl game, I'm pretty decent at mugs now. I just need to finish putting handles on all of last week's mugs and then it's bowls bowls bowls. Gonna force myself to figure out getting them to the gauge every time.
Oh yeah, and I have to finish editing my latest YouTube video. Hah. I don't think people realize how difficult editing video is until they're neck deep in it. Kudos to any YouTubers out there
What’s on your workbench?
in Aesthetic Approaches and Philosophy
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And here's the other two pictures dang upload limit