liambesaw

In school we had three different firings, 5 kilns.  We had lowfire/bisque, cone 6, and cone 10.  The lowfire and cone 6 were always done in big top loaders, and the cone 10 stuff was saved for the big walk-in gas kiln outside.  
Students would put their work to be fired on big rolling shelves clearly labeled with the firing temp, well one of the TAs grabbed two carts of porcelain and loaded them in the gas kiln, grabbed the stoneware and loaded it, and after the professor checked, gave it the go ahead to start the firing.  Well one of the porcelain carts was not porcelain, it was a bunch of another TAs lowfire slipware.  
They had to replace sections of the floor, and after that, no more lowfire clay, and all clays had to be purchased from the school.
 
I talked to a person who is currently going there and it sounds like they're down to two clays, cone 10 stoneware or cone 10 porcelain, and use a cone 10 stoneware for raku.  But now they also do 2 wood firings a year, which I'm very jealous of.
It wasn't the person loading being silly though, it was the other TA who was pretty much trying to run a business out of the school studio.  He got in trouble for making sinks and selling them as well.

Here are the three pots I made, glazed using every glaze (^04 commercial) that I could find in my house/studio.  They are in alphabetic order until I ran out, then went searching for more.  
They are slab-built, around 200 mm/8 inches tall.  Biggest things I've made, and all three in one week.  All fired separately, couldn't get more than one in the kiln at a time.
Had some cookie catchers/saucers hanging around so glazed them and put them on the bottom shelf.
 

Probably my normal job.  I am lucky enough to have a creative day job, I make teeth for people.  A lot of the movements and smoothness is the same just exaggerated with clay.  I'm also surrounded by old equipment and chemical containers and stuff like that, it really puts me into a weird container mindset.
My wife and I also love going thrifting and I draw a lot of inspiration from old junk we find when we are out doing that.

Probably my normal job.  I am lucky enough to have a creative day job, I make teeth for people.  A lot of the movements and smoothness is the same just exaggerated with clay.  I'm also surrounded by old equipment and chemical containers and stuff like that, it really puts me into a weird container mindset.
My wife and I also love going thrifting and I draw a lot of inspiration from old junk we find when we are out doing that.

Might need to change the name, since the leach family still sell them

Cute!  And nice jig

Today, on my workbench, is pot #1 of 3. Formed around a flower bucket, wrapped with bubble-wrap.  
 

Shhh, they might hear you!

whoa I didn't realize how attached so many were to their GG. I hope the company doesn't see this thread because those suckers already cost a couple hundred bucks.
 

Here's a chart with both:

I use a milk cap on the top and apply gentle pressure while trimming tall forms.  More than one way to skin a cat
my favorite way is to throw forms that don't need to be trimmed heh

My wife married a potter-I was a potter for over 20 +years at that point. She knew what this was about. Over time I think she learned that customers have no clue (they call on weekends whatever). They never return work at a show on booth where they find it -Thney leave trash on the the shelves-the usual leaning curve that the public is clueless .
She wishes now that I would only be driving 2 horses over the 6- I normally drive.I am starting to slow it down and this pandemic has done that for me as well-only working clay every other week now.
The extended family-sister and  here kids really do not get what this is about or how it works at all. They live a long ways away and have strange ideas on the whole thing.
Seems like magic I think they think?
They do get the passion for diving  or fishing tuna more I think as thats a more normal deal.

Let's see, these are the things that I hear about the most:
There's too many pots in the house
Too many orange buckets outside
Driveway is full of clay
Tracking clay in the house
Can't have the windows to the carport open when firing
When are you gonna sell all these things?
 
For the most part I try to do everything once the kids and wife to go sleep, that gives me 4 hours of solid me time either in the shed making pots, or editing videos, designing, silk screening, etc etc etc. But since they're asleep, they don't ever complain about the time I spend out there... Unless it's the weekend lol, because I try to be out there every weekend all weekend.

Marcia and I are similar. We like to see folks excell and innovate  so as long as it’s not bizarre we have fun with learning new things or watching each other try new ideas or just create something that ends up suitable when finished. (Both are severely critical of our own work) For the most part when either of us are in a slump we like to see that excitement and enthusiasm again when engaged in a successful project. In Marcias defense, I like to fix everything and make Mechanical / electrical things better so I am sure she gets tired of me never buyIng something new. Besides that  old Admiral refrigerator has lots of life left in it!

I dont have a good saw for that and they were about the same price so ...

Let's see, these are the things that I hear about the most:
There's too many pots in the house
Too many orange buckets outside
Driveway is full of clay
Tracking clay in the house
Can't have the windows to the carport open when firing
When are you gonna sell all these things?
 
For the most part I try to do everything once the kids and wife to go sleep, that gives me 4 hours of solid me time either in the shed making pots, or editing videos, designing, silk screening, etc etc etc. But since they're asleep, they don't ever complain about the time I spend out there... Unless it's the weekend lol, because I try to be out there every weekend all weekend.

So learning how to trim without a Giffin Grip is no longer a useful skill? I should require every student to buy a Giffin Grip if they want to learn how to trim in my classes?

Here's a chart with both:

We were only allowed to buy clay from the school as students.  The TAs or studio assistants as they liked to be called, were allowed a lot of latitude in what they wanted to do.
After they switched everything to cone 10 it made recycling clay a lot simpler too, everything was just tossed into a single bin and what came out was the "free" clay.  A mixture of stoneware and porcelain all plugged together was all I could afford at the time lol.

In school we had three different firings, 5 kilns.  We had lowfire/bisque, cone 6, and cone 10.  The lowfire and cone 6 were always done in big top loaders, and the cone 10 stuff was saved for the big walk-in gas kiln outside.  
Students would put their work to be fired on big rolling shelves clearly labeled with the firing temp, well one of the TAs grabbed two carts of porcelain and loaded them in the gas kiln, grabbed the stoneware and loaded it, and after the professor checked, gave it the go ahead to start the firing.  Well one of the porcelain carts was not porcelain, it was a bunch of another TAs lowfire slipware.  
They had to replace sections of the floor, and after that, no more lowfire clay, and all clays had to be purchased from the school.
 
I talked to a person who is currently going there and it sounds like they're down to two clays, cone 10 stoneware or cone 10 porcelain, and use a cone 10 stoneware for raku.  But now they also do 2 wood firings a year, which I'm very jealous of.
It wasn't the person loading being silly though, it was the other TA who was pretty much trying to run a business out of the school studio.  He got in trouble for making sinks and selling them as well.

Ask them to order you some

We were only allowed to buy clay from the school as students.  The TAs or studio assistants as they liked to be called, were allowed a lot of latitude in what they wanted to do.
After they switched everything to cone 10 it made recycling clay a lot simpler too, everything was just tossed into a single bin and what came out was the "free" clay.  A mixture of stoneware and porcelain all plugged together was all I could afford at the time lol.

Teaching in HS, I made the decision to transition from ^06 to ^6. Itw as a personal decision on my part, but in the long run I believe it benefited the program. That transition however made me aware of the fact that low/high fire clays and glazes would not mix. So I did not allow anything in the studio unless the clay came from the studio.
 
bst,
Pres

In school we had three different firings, 5 kilns.  We had lowfire/bisque, cone 6, and cone 10.  The lowfire and cone 6 were always done in big top loaders, and the cone 10 stuff was saved for the big walk-in gas kiln outside.  
Students would put their work to be fired on big rolling shelves clearly labeled with the firing temp, well one of the TAs grabbed two carts of porcelain and loaded them in the gas kiln, grabbed the stoneware and loaded it, and after the professor checked, gave it the go ahead to start the firing.  Well one of the porcelain carts was not porcelain, it was a bunch of another TAs lowfire slipware.  
They had to replace sections of the floor, and after that, no more lowfire clay, and all clays had to be purchased from the school.
 
I talked to a person who is currently going there and it sounds like they're down to two clays, cone 10 stoneware or cone 10 porcelain, and use a cone 10 stoneware for raku.  But now they also do 2 wood firings a year, which I'm very jealous of.
It wasn't the person loading being silly though, it was the other TA who was pretty much trying to run a business out of the school studio.  He got in trouble for making sinks and selling them as well.

I remember the salt, and gas firing I did. I was a grad student at Penn State taking Summer classes. My firing partner and I used a small salt kiln outside that had no door, had to be bricked up. We loaded up ware from everyone including a lot of our own. All went well, until about 1am, when the bricked in door started bulging out about 1 1/2 f feet. We scrambled around to try and find a way of bracing it up and did so with some T supports that were somewhere nearby. We got to where we should put in the salt, did that right, but did not close the damper before hand. Really dry salt firing, but not a failure, if the door had collapsed I don't have any idea what would have happened. I don't think it would have been pretty!
 
best,
Pres