liambesaw

I'm making YouTube videos now too! I thought to myself "what is the internet missing?" And guess what, there wasn't a single video of me in my pajamas making mugs, now there is! Still trying to figure out the whole YouTube thing but I'll get there!

I got a foundation in ceramics back before YouTube, but had a pretty long hiatus between college and getting my own gear. Now I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos on technique and read helpful books like a potters workbook by Clary illian, or functional pottery by Robin Hopper. I also read back issues of PMI and CM. I think it's just all around absorb as much as I can. Of course these forums here are really nice as well. I have been to a single demo, and it was nice but I was getting annoyed by all of the weird questions that people were asking while the presenter was trying to demo, it felt like they really got in the way. I enjoy doing stuff by figuring it out so I think I'll stay away from the arts center for now!

Welp, had to go get clay again, was down to my last box. This time I decided to go ahead and bring a half ton home, which is all I trusted myself and my Tahoe to drive safely in crazy downpour. 500lbs of Klamath yellow and 500 lbs of vashon red. I really like the yellow as a fast, soft clay and the red as a stiffer smoother clay. Also picked up two new kiln shelves for the kiln I got in December. The ones it came with were both cracked and covered in lowfire glaze. Now I can get 3 shelves of mugs in my kiln at once which will be very nice. Speaking of kilns, I'm doing a full bisque right now! So far I've been able to fill my kiln every week with a bisque, I'm pretty happy with that! This week on my workbench is more spoonrests and mugs. I spent this last week doing just a bunch of spoonrests.

Haha this year if the farmers markets yield a bounty!

I know most people here have a dedicated area for their pottery, and I feel like eventually I'll move towards that. When that time comes there is a list of equipment I'd love to get for specific reasons and a slab roller is one of them. I'd love to make slab plates and feel like a slab roller would make that a lot faster. I want an extruder for handles, test tiles and extruded kiln stuffers (soap dishes, toothbrush holders, business card holders, etc). But in the end I need to be realistic about the space I have, so no. The space a slab roller would take up would mean displacing my entire rack of glaze chemicals, which also happens to be the rack with my sleeping bags, tent and portapotty.

I have a pedal, I just have to keep my foot on it to maintain speed. It's an AC motor so can't do a whole lot. There are some bolts I can crank on to stiffen it up a bit, they're just a pain to get to.

I want to get a wheel that doesn't do that, would be so nice for throwing bigger forms. So I could stand and pull. Maybe this year if I am able to sell some mugs and bowls and whatnot.

Extruded soap dishes

Can I see what those look like? For me, I've got a bunch of mugs to trim and handle, and another bunch of mugs to throw. I have been making sake sets for my relatives in Japan, hopefully going back this year

Wow they all look so good!

Well I'm all out of space again, so more firings this weekend! Have a bisque load ready and then I'll have to do a few glaze firings. If I keep it up at this rate I'll have enough to do a farmers market or whatnot in no time

Isn't that great though? Throw a beautiful form and then slap it around a bit to make it interesting. I've recently gotten into paddling my forms on the wheel. Takes some getting used to but it's a lot of fun! I'm amazed at how hard I can whack a nice tall cylinder and still be able to shape it a bit afterward! As far as going electric, I have wanted an electric kiln for a very long time. Gas firing looks very nice and being able to reduce glazes and body is nice too, but it is expensive for me and requires my full attention for an entire day. It's tiring and I've got a 5 and 7 year old running around, so I am just glad I have one less thing to worry about.

Very nice, almost bone-like. Was the pinholing from high loi? When I put my glazes into insight I know that the loi figures are a rough guess, but I try to keep mine low by subbing out whiting and fiddling.

Is the Ray's cream just the creamy part or is it breaking blue like that

Got a glaze firing in, was able to fit 40 mugs. This is a representative sample! So happy to finally have an electric kiln working! This week I have a bunch of candles I'm working on, gonna be great! Right now I have a bunch of lidded containers bisquing, big stuff I have to fire alone, can't really pack it too tight. Y'all that grew up on electric have no idea how easy youve got it!!!

I agree, believe me, I fall asleep to wheels jumping over a fence every night.

It's funny, this thread inspired me to contact shimpo about my drifting pedal, looks like it's a simple fix wahoo! I'm skeptical of course, the thing is 50 years old, but hey it's worth a shot! I got a copy of the rk-2 price and stock list and they have quite a few important parts completely discontinued now so looks like when this thing dies I'll be in the market for a fancy dc motor one.

Yeah I just looked, permenant magnet DC motors. Don't know if they're brushed or brushless, the literature doesn't say.

Is that a DC motor one? I use a small DC handpiece at work and it gets choppy at low speeds when it needs new brushes. Very cheap fix if that's what it is

For me it's probably torque and speed control. I use a vintage shimpo rk-2, the ring-cone drive is very torquey, the one gripe I have is that I can't take my foot off and maintain speed. If I take my foot off it either goes to full speed or to zero. Another thing I like, but isn't quite as important is that in neutral it spins freely like a banding wheel. Makes on-wheel alterations very easy.

This week I'll be throwing 3lb bowls, 1 lb bowls and candle holders. Did my 3lb bowls last night, tonight will be 1lb bowls. I also have a full kiln full of freshly bisqued mugs, will glaze, decorate and fire those this weekend! I have enough stuff to bisque, so much actually, I should really start doing daily firings til I'm caught up, would save from having to dance around all this greenware.

That I should have gone to electrician school. I actually did the $1250+tax quoted work, saved myself 800 dollars. Crawling in my crawlspace was a pain in the butt but definitely not worth 800. If I had done the short run I originally planned on, it would have been CAKE! I'm just glad to see glowing red coils, can't wait to open the kiln and see whats inside!

Haha, 80% of the work goes to you and the other helpful people around here. I'm just so grateful for all of the wonderful folks that make this website into a community.

Haha, I'm bisquing a full load of mugs as we speak. It's 18x23 and I think I've got around 60 mugs in there. I need to get a couple new shelves for it, the ones that came with it were well beaten with lowfire glaze and cracked/broken, and the shelves from my old kiln are too small. No big deal, the shelves for this one are 40 bucks a piece. Other than that, the elements seem to be fine so far. The bottom element is out of it's channel, and seems too small, I pinned it as best I could but it won. New elements are on my list but will have to wait a bit, 200 bucks for a complete replace. The good news is, it's getting hot and anything else that comes up will be a whole lot easier to handle than crawling in my crawlspace and running wire.