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I've started making tiles and am successfully keeping them flat during drying by sandwiching them between pieces of plasterboard (drywall). All of my tiles are about 3/8" (10mm) thick. However, when drying border pieces, say 1" x 4" x 3/8", although they stay flat (in the z-axis), they nearly always bend upwards or downwards (in the y-axis). I'm using molochite-grogged clay appropriate for tiles and using a wall mounted extruder to make the borders. I'm drying the borders very slowly, say for a couple of weeks, but they nearly always bend by the time they've dried. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I can stop this? I've tried using pieces of wood between the plasterboard to constrain the bending and butting many rows of the border tiles up against each other to try to keep them straight, without much success. I'm trying to make several feet of the borders at a time. There must be an established way to do this, judging by the amount of straight border tiles I see almost every day! Perhaps a dedicated type of drying rack? I've searched in vain to find one. Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi!! I have just finished a sculpture of a baby using smooth red clay. This is my third clay sculpture, but first without a teacher to guide me. With my previous sculptures, it was easier to remove the armatures.. there were less detailed areas which made it less traumatic to cut open/join back together. I was also far less particular about my sculptures then as can be seen by the fact I removed the armatures far too early. Is it okay for me to leave the paper inside when I fire it? Also, how slowly should I dry it to make sure fingers, toes and ears don't crack? Any other advice? Thanks in advance

I'm having severe cracking problems on large 20 inch platters. I think it's from hairline cracks developing during drying. The platters were dried upside down for about four months inside large plastic bags. Every week or so I would open the end of the bag and flush some fresh air through to clear out some of the condensation on the inside of the bag. Some of the platters were thrown in the traditional pull a cylinder and spread it out technique. Others were made from a slab laid on the bat on the wheel head. It doesn't seem to make any difference which way they were made. Attached are pictures of various styles of cracks. Suggestions please