Suresh Sundaram

I’m struggling with using too many different clay bodies. I use a raku clay body that I mix. For white stoneware, I have been using BMix-10 from laguna, and am in the process of switching to one I can mix. I use a brown stoneware from Laguna because I like the speckles in reduction. I use #10T from Laguna, a low fire earthenware, for horsehair. I also Slipcast raku, earthenware and white stoneware and each needs a different mix, different from my raku and stoneware bodies. So that’s four throwing bodies and three Slipcast bodies. I’m thinking about brown stoneware slipcasting. Thankfully I don’t do much hand building (yet). I fire Raku (home), cone 6 (home)and 9 oxidation (community studio) and cone 10 reduction (community studio). Luckily I’m not a production potter (I make 100-150 pieces a year, not counting everything that doesn’t meet specs). How did you guys eliminate bodies, firing techniques, etc? They’re all so interesting! And yet, sometimes I’m overwhelmed.

@Min Got it. I also checked out the blog post from @Hulk. Thanks for all the help, guys. I’m going to go out and enjoy the 59 degree (F) sunny day here in Boston on January 13!

Almost looks like when he puts the colored slip or underglaze on the platter, it repels what's underneath. My library said they can order the book from a broader network. I will post if I find the technique on there. Meanwhile, there is this video (see from 2:45m on) but it's not mocha diffusion, I don't think.

Thanks for the tip, Bill. I’ll play around with the glaze (I’m looking for a more satiny finish). I use a combination of underglaze and colored (casting) slips, it’ll take me a while to get the hang of it.

@Bill Kielb Thanks, Bill, for the reminder. I did read that but hadn’t fully processed it. I’m trying to create the look that’s on the cover of Robin Hopper’s Making Marks book (I don’t have the book and the library network doesn’t have it). It’s similar to the covered jar with underglaze on Glazy that you posted with the recipe. I believe it’s with a 1.38 specific gravity.

Thanks, Min! Appreciate the super fast response and the new recipe. I’ll try it on my clay body and keep my fingers crossed. I’ve been using BMix but am in the process of switching to my own stoneware clay (basically a raku body with added feldspar and no grog).

Hi, Has anyone developed a recipe with Fabi Talc substituted for Amtalc-c98 in Bill Kielb’s recipe for Marcia’s Matte? I’ve been looking for a cone 6 matte satin recipe to use over underglaze for a while with limited success. Today I found a link to Bill Kielb’s recipe for Marcia’s Matte glaze in another post on this forum. I was all excited after seeing the pictures on glazy! Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the recipe uses Amtalc-c98 (which is not available anymore). I’m new to using talc for anything. My pottery store sold me fabi talc but I can’t find an analysis for fabi talc on digital fire. I did find an analysis on another post here but I’m not sure how accurate it is. In any case it’s different from Amtalc. I know I can develop tests (start with a 1:1 and go up and down) but I’m hoping to save myself the work if someone else has already done it Any other pointers are also appreciated. Thanks, Suresh

Hi, I see that there are no responses so I’ll chime in with what little I know. I haven’t done mass production but you might find this article on one potter’s experience with mass production of coffee mugs insightful: https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/Going-Industrial-One-Potter-Shares-his-Experience-with-the-Mass-Production-of-his-Pottery You can try looking up MudShark out of Portland OR (https://mudsharkstudios.com). I have no personal affiliation with them nor have used their services but they were highly recommended during a workshop that I took last year. Good luck. I’ll be curious to hear about your experiences.

Good to know, Peter, thanks!

Thanks, Peter. I don't even think about buying books anymore - the library is such an awesome resource- that I didn't even look! I found Nigrosh's casting slip recipe on Glazy. It's listed as a glaze! No wonder I didn't find it 'cause I looked at all the casting slip recipes on Glazy few weeks ago.

Thanks, Jeff! I would rather start with a published recipe like this than from scratch. My local library has the book in “STORAGE.” I’ll see how if they can retrieve it. Sounds like it might be a good resource for me.

Thanks, Callie, for the detailed response. I am a total hobbyist potter and barely break 4 figures in sales in a year so that gives you sense of the scale of my operation! I am concluding that I am using Trello both as a workflow management system and as an inventory management system and that is probably expecting too much. On the workflow side, I agree, I added a lot of fields like all the intermediate dates, weights, dimensions, etc. so I could do analytics. Needless to say...I haven't done any analytics which begs the question why bother capturing all that data! Duh! I am thinking if I can simplify the number of steps and reduce the number of fields, I will use Trello more. Then if there is a way to export the finished items to a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet can become my inventory system. Thanks again. It has been productive conversation Suresh

How I wish I had joined this forum a lot sooner than just a couple of weeks ago! I started using Trello for organizing my pottery projects in 2019, but essentially gave up sometime in 2022. There were several reasons (listed below) but I wonder if I had found this forum back then I would have learned a few tricks that would have had me keep using it. The things I loved about Trello were the easy user interface, the ability to easily customize fields, the amazing mobile app and the price ($0). I use a community studio and the ability to update things on the mobile app was a killer feature. The main reason I quit using Trello is because I found the it very unwieldy. I created separate boards for each year, one for 2019, one for 2020 and so on. I had my lists organized according to my community studio workflow steps -throw, trim, bisque shelf, bisque done, glaze, glaze shelf, glaze done, picked up, sold, discarded. Even with so many steps, eventually all the items ended up in one of the last three lists. I added photos to each item and displayed the finished photo as a thumbnail so I could see what each piece was. The problem: once you have 50 or more pieces in the list I found having to scroll up and down all the time looking for the item I was interested in was a big pain. Has anybody else figured out how to deal with this? (I could have probably reduced the information I had visible on each card but I think it would show at most 5 items on the screen so I don't know that it would have solved the scrolling problem.) The second problem I had is that when I started using Trello, they gave the free user the use of one or two (I can't remember) Power Ups. When I went to create the 2022 board they took that away. I could keep using the Power Ups in the boards that I had already created but I could not create a new board with these Power Ups. So I used by 2021 board for my 2022 work. But it bothered me that they could just take features away with no notification at any time. As a free user I guess I should expect it but they lost a bit of trust. For the life of me I can't remember what the Power Ups were! I went back to my board (they are still there after more than a year of not using it) but I can't figure it out. The final problem may have been my own creation. In an effort to really track what was happening with my pottery, I created lots of fields - see screen shot below. Entering all those fields was a pain - click on the card, click on the field, enter the value, close the field, close the card. I decided a spreadsheet would be much more compact and quick. I switched to a spreadsheet but the problem of course is that a spreadsheet is not as visually appealing, and storing pictures in a spreadsheet is a pain. For now I am thinking of using the Photos app., and creating albums to reflect the workflow stage. Now that I think about it I am not sure it will work. So I am still on the hunt for a good way to track workflow. Eventually I would love it if I could integrated my tracking software with a sales/consignment software so I can easily upload my finished pieces to an inventory system. However, since I am still working full time and pottery is just a hobby, the need is not urgent. I just love solving these kinds of problems! Apologies for the long post.

Hi Jeff, Thank you for the tip. I was not aware of MCP Artware. I am hoping to formulate my own recipe instead of buying one but you have helped me. The MSDS sheet for MCP Artware shows Talc and Kaolin between 25 and 65%, Silica at 10-25%, Dolomite and Feldspar at 5-10% each and small amounts of Calcium Carbonate and Titanium Dioxide. Laguna 10T, the earthenware clay which I had pretty good luck with, shows a composition of Kaolin at 25-65%, Talc and Silica at 10-25% each, Calcium Carbonate and Feldspar at 5-10%, Dolomite at <5% and Titanium Dioxide <2%. In other words the components are the same, just some of the percentages are different. This gives me confidence that the MCP Artware will work for my situation. (Interesting that there is no ball clay in either). I am thinking to start with a simple formulation of Talc 50%, Kaolin 25%, Silica at 15%. Feldspar at 10% and go from there. I will start with the assumption that the Dolomite, Calcium Carbonate and Titanium Oxide are not integral to the formulation. I have never worked with Talc before so I don't know if I have enough plastic materials. If that becomes a problem, I can try introducing ball clay and reduce the other ingredients proportionatety. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Suresh

Hello, I am looking for a white, low-fire casting slip recipe that can be used to create horsehair pottery, When I throw these pieces I use Laguna's #10T earthenware which has worked great. I know I can try and create a casting slip from the #10T but I am hoping to get a recipe using raw materials. I tried creating the casting slip from my raku clay recipe (33% Hawthorne 35 mesh fireclay, 33% Tile 6 and 33% OM4 ball clay) but (a) it gels too fast and (b) it is not white enough. I think I have too many plastic ingredients. My next step is to replace the Tile 6 with EPK (less plastic) or Velvacast, and after that the ball clay with FC340 ball clay. While I do these experiments, I thought I would reach out to this group to see if someone has already been down this path. I should mention that I have used Laguna's 500L stoneware casting slip but the breakage rate is too high. Thanks, Suresh