Lotion/soap bottles threaded tops-Now Hand sanitizers

[Mark C.]

I have been making these since the late 70's and early 80's

I only have made threaded tops-the reason is all other methods are lesser

Corks wear out -plastic threaded tops (collars) come loose as the glue WILL fail over time-trust me the e-6000 does break free on plastic over time-I have had so many customers with pump collar issues to me and I always say well I have never used glued or plastic collars so its not one of my pots failing.

Threaded tops last the life of the pot-and for a lotion bottle thats a long time. 

How do I know this well back in the 80s I tested throwing this form at a fence very hard-this story got out to the local collage newspaper and they did a story on my testing the strength of my pottery in what I would say was real world testing. 

Lotion bottles are very tough indeed at least the high fire porcelain ones I make.

Many of the products I use  in the studio are no longer made-that's life  in clay after 45 years--I use a power sponger for example -no longer made-I use many glaze jets and they are not available commercially anymore-for apply inside glazes to cups and mugs (I did a piece in Studio Potter on how to make one years ago)

The same is true with these collar dies-most are long gone

So these plaster dies are sourced from long gone vendor as I noted above -you can make your own and thats not that hard or there is one place that still sells them but for me the shrinkage was not right for my clay body-that place is some friends of mine called One Dream -they are crystalline potters.

With a plaster die you have some control on the shrinkage by using soft or hard clay to get slightly more or less shrinkage.That said you still need a die that is  close to your call body shrinkage -another work around is make the top from another body altogether and join that on the bottle top but working with two different body that shrink differently is a bad idea really and can be problematic .

So My hand sanitizers look like this  one in 1st  photo. I buy the tops in large quantities to keep costs down as I have mentioned with all things ceramic-buy more =less cost per # or unit

 A little known factiod is that Aftosa which recently went out of business started in the early 80s with one product a plastic lotion pump top made in China for them for us potters.It was landmark product back in that day.

I started buying these from them-I bought 1,000 pumps at a time. They where then made of high quality  material and never did i get feedback from customers on quality issues (pumps going bad)

Todays all pumps are not like that anymore and they all can fail no matter what they look like or how much you pay for them.

I use 99% metal pumps these days ,that are not metal really ,only metal on the outside and all plastic inside. You cut the dip straw whatever length you need when assembling the bottle.

I like the stainless steel ones and use  and stock those in a a few colors but most are silver

The photos show three different types of plaster dies The white PVC pipe ones are the ones I use (no longer available fro Axner)

One dream makes the purple pvc ones in photo. These are fragile so they are wrapped in a slice of pvc pipe

You can make your own as well just takes some thought

The hex ones in photo are from the 70's and are very fragile.

Most used to come in two sizes usually with a plus or minus on the side. So you had some flexibility on clay shrinkage.

You will need to figure out if your clay body will work with these  collars shrinkage wise-its testing-you can do it with just a fired collar-you do not need a whole pot.

With these collars you press the clay into the collar and wire off the excess on backside (wide side) and let sit a spell  to firm up then cut the hole in center-the tool is shown came with my dies long ago and I use bout 12 dies at any one time and have several of these tools -you will have to make one-but that easy.Its important to keep the die on a flat surface when cutting so its not distorted . 

After cutting center hole leave them alone to get harder. When firm remove and score and slip onto your form. For me it was a lotion/soap bottle for 40 years now its hand sanitizer bottle. 

They like soap dishes and sponge holder or any pots used with cleaning is a hot item right now and I have seen an uptick in sales of these forms now with the covid-19 craze on this planet.

 

[blackthorn]

Thanks Mark.  Pretty useful.