Drying room

[Dookie]

Hi I'm a newbie and have set up in the garage. My question is what's a good set up to dry my work? It's takes about 3 days to become leather hard. It's taking soooo long

[oldlady]

welcome to the forum.   to get the best answer, giving more info would help.  what materials do you use, how the work is made, size, etc.  photos are always helpful.  this is a great group and someone will know just what you need.

[Dookie]

I'm using terracotta or earthenware. The things that I make are mugs and bowls about 6 inches across. I would send pictures but what I want is generally low quality 

[Denice]

It can be humid in my area so I put a small desk fan or a light bulb in the bottom of my cabinet,  the fan cannot blow directly on the pots.   The cabinet I use is a utility or laundry room cabinet, it is all plastic with adjustable shelves and is vented.   I have to put wire racks on the shelves so I won't have a build up of condensation between the shelf and the bottom of the pot.  I pick up the racks at estate sales,   you have to know the size  and make sure the wires and to far apart.  I bought one for tile that is called a pie rack ,  3 shelves that stack on top of each other and then fold up to put away.    Denice

[Dookie]

Ok, I've just been leaving them on the work top and letting them dry. I will get myself a little cupboard

[Hulk]

Air movement can make a big difference.
At school we threw and trimmed wares in one session, setting up the bats outside with a fan blowing directly on them - the trick there is to turn the ware often enough that they dry evenly, else they will warp.

At my home Studio, I'm not in nearly as much hurry.
With the rollup door up, and the back door open, there's a subtle waft of air through the Studio, which speeds drying quite a bit.
I'll do a quarter turn every twenty minutes or half hour.

Denice's method doesn't require turning!

At home, more often I'm looking to slow down, rather than speed up drying!

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Another trick is to use a dehumidifier in your workspace. Fans create directional air movement, and can cause uneven drying. Denise gave a great workaround, but if you can’t find a suitable cabinet, dehumidifiers will take care of the entire room. Earthenware and terra cotta clays aren’t usually bothered too much by uneven drying, but if you start making larger/wider pieces or decide to try some porcelain, it’s something to keep in the back of your mind. 

[Denice]

The utility cabinet I bought doesn't cost much here but you may not find one where you live.   The college I went to made up a  wooden shelf unit with slat shelves,  they would wrap it in heavy painters plastic  put a fan and light bulb in in.  I wouldn't leave the light bulb on unattended,  I just had a lampshade frame break and it fell against small low wattage bulb and melted.    Denice

[Roberta12]

Agree with Tom.  Air movement is crucial.  But like @Hulk  I am trying to slow it down at times.  I have very low humidity where I live.  A friend of mind in L.A. is having problems getting anything to dry at all right now.  Lot of rain.    She is resorting to fans.  

Roberta

[Hulk]

For slowing, I'm still using 2.5 quart, 2 gallon, and 5 gallon (for big wares!) containers inverted over each ware.
A periodic misting with a spray bottle slows things down - indefinitely, if desired, just watch for mold!

Putting all the ware to be kept moist in a damp box can be more efficient, however, I'll typically have less than a dozen pieces in damp state - with the individual approach, I can bring each along to "ready to trim" state separately.

[Dookie]

What about if I was go dry them in my oven, that's got a little fan and I can keep the heat low. 

[Denice]

You could try it but be prepared for warping or cracking,  the lowest  temperature on my oven is 180  that is awfully hot for clay.  I took a summer throwing class we would take our pots out and set them in the shade out of the wind.  It was 105 out that temperature was pushing the edge of the thrown pots tolerance.   Denice

 

[Rae Reich]

My older model oven has a pilot light that stays on all the time and makes a gentle warmth to dry pots, probably about the same amount of warmth as a low-wattage light bulb. I prop a wooden spoon in the door to allow moisture to leave. 

If you make a drying cabinet, be sure to have ventilation holes. 
 

 

[Denice]

The utility cabinet I use is vented,  I purchase 2 of them 13 years ago for  80 dollars.   I bought two because I wanted to make sure I had enough drying space.  I have never used the second one,  my husband uses it in the garage.   I was recently in a lumber yard and noticed they had the same cabinets for 40 dollars.  they haven't  change prices in 13 years.  Denice.

[Bill Kielb]

On 1/27/2023 at 3:07 PM, Dookie said:

 

What about if I was go dry them in my oven, that's got a little fan and I can keep the heat low. 

 

In case you need to dry quickly, when in a hurry folks often put their ware on a wheel on VERY slow speed (maybe 1 revolution per minute) with a small fan blowing GENTLY on the ware as it turns. A few hours of that often gets the ware fairly dry and the remainder can be air dried or any of the other methods employed. The oven, may be a bit hot and hard to control. A bit of caution here, if you accidentally speed up your wheel the pieces could fly off. Reasonable care with speed is important.

You can’t do this forever and attention to NOT blowing dust around is key.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Bill Kielb

[oldlady]

all of the above works for the folks who use those methods.  they may be exactly what you need,  dookie.   i just want to make a comment on the fear of using an oven with heat on greenware.

there seems to be an opinion that heat in an oven is detrimental.   heat is only changing the state of the clay from wet, or moist, or damp or whatever stage it is in to drier.  and warmer for awhile.   that does not mean it cannot be returned to damp, moist or even wetter than moist.    i have been using the oven in some cases for years with no bad effects.  

potters should know their clay.   its qualities and its limits.   some clay likes to be thrown but will fight being made into a slab and bent to a shape.   others are the opposite.  it is your job to seek its limits.    the very easiest thing to learn is how does it react to water.   it will not hurt the potter to simply dry out a piece of clay and test it.  a piece about the size of a business card allows a lot of tests.   totally dry it.    use a cup of water and dip the short end in deep enough for half an inch of wet to show on the clay.  pull it out fairly fast.   look at the surface to see if it still shines or not.   remember that.    now, scrape the wet area with a sharp tool to see how deeply wet that part is.   probably not very deep.   remember that.   try the opposite end of the clay and dip it longer.   remember that.   scrape it and see how much more the wet has grown.   remember that.  dip the alternate end in long enough to make it separate from the original shape.   remember that as too much.  anything before destruction can be reversed with heat or time.   just try it!

by now, you might have realized that it does take a LOT of water entering a totally dry piece of clay to destroy the original piece.    so many folks think just getting something wet will kill their piece and they might be surprised to learn that was just fear and they need not believe it anymore.    i know a potter who thinks if she is interrupted while working, she has to start again from the beginning.  to her, there is just a short window to have the "flow" of making a piece work.    nonsense?

 

[Dookie]

Well I put all the pots in the oven and they bent and buckled and developed a little crack. But glaze covered it. 

 

I'm going to keep doing it

[Bill Kielb]

Interesting! Long ago when I first started  I made lidded pots only to often find out the lids I made failed miserably. I was left with a plethora of pots with no lids! What to do? I opened my first pottery business …… named it Topless pots! Opening day I was jamb packed with folks lined up down the street. I thought I had found  the perfect lasting solution, but In the end lots of disappointed potential customers for some reason.  

Finally, I had to learn better how to make lids that lasted.

Glad that worked for you, hope it is lasting and if not, you have lots of ideas above for speed drying.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Bill Kielb

[Rae Reich]

8 hours ago, Dookie said:

Well I put all the pots in the oven and they bent and buckled and developed a little crack. But glaze covered it. 

Ouch! I think we might have not specified that oven drying works best to remove the last remaining moisture from dry pots before they go into the kiln. The likely reason your pieces warped in the oven is that they were not dry enough, probably still leather hard.

Is seems you need to have a way to take your work from leather hard (still can be bent or distorted, doesn’t look dry) to dry. That’s where a drying cabinet or box comes in. Vent holes at the top and a light bulb at the bottom, door closed to preclude drafts. Might take a couple of days until the pots look dry, depending on how crowded the box or cabinet is. 

Pots that look dry may still have enough moisture left in them to break or crack them when heated too quickly, but at that point they can go into a cold oven to warm slowly, leaving the door propped open a half inch for moisture to leave. To test, put the bottom of a piece against your cheek, if it feels cool there’s still moisture in it - dry very slowly, turn heat off when it reaches 100 degrees or so.

[oldlady]

thanks, rae.   it never occurred to me that dookie would put a lot of  really wet pots in the oven and turn it on.   

dookie, i meant that you can FINISH drying pots so they are ready for the kiln sooner than just drying on your work top.   oven drying is NOT for just made work.

[Dookie]

I'm not a patient human, I'm just going to let people know that they are hand made and therefore people seem to like them more.  Crappy imperfections on the pot/mug  seem to make people like them more. However I have to make the glaze spot on. 

[oldlady]

do you have adequate liability insurance for those buyers who get cut on imperfect, crappy, pots you sell?   imagine someone with a mug full of boiling coffee when the handle falls off.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

22 hours ago, Dookie said:

I'm not a patient human, I'm just going to let people know that they are hand made and therefore people seem to like them more. 

As someone who learned patience very much against their will, moaning about it the ENTIRE time: this will only get you so far.

At some point someone’s going to make a nasty comment, and the good feelings of cranking stuff out will vanish very abruptly. There is a happy medium between waiting 4 days for leather hard and speed drying in your oven in a matter of hours. It leads to better pots, and all the good feelings about having learned a skill/accomplished what you set out to do on purpose, rather than accepting “happy accidents” all the time. 

[LeeU]

On 2/6/2023 at 1:22 PM, Dookie said:

I'm not a patient human, I'm just going to let people know that they are hand made and therefore people seem to like them more. 

People may respond well to the "hand made", but the "crappy imperfections" aspect of the craftmanship is not likely what they are attracted to. The nature of successfully working with clay includes an awareness that it takes time, requires patience, can be expensive to do it right,  and, at a minimum, a good basic ceramics class is worth the investment of time and money. I too am impatient and I had to become willing and delibertive in learning about clay/glaze/equiptment, testing clay/glaze chemistry, becoming familar with my own kiln, and a bit about ethics and integrity when passing on my work to others, whether as gifts or for money. "Flaws" can be intentionally and creatively used in a visually stylistic manner, but they still must be structurally sound. 

[Babs]

On 2/2/2023 at 11:47 AM, Bill Kielb said:

Interesting! Long ago when I first started  I made lidded pots only to often find out the lids I made failed miserably. I was left with a plethora of pots with no lids! What to do? I opened my first pottery business …… named it Topless pots! Opening day I was jamb packed with folks lined up down the street. I thought I had found  the perfect lasting solution, but In the end lots of disappointed potential customers for some reason.  

Finally, I had to learn better how to make lids that lasted.

Glad that worked for you, hope it is lasting and if not, you have lots of ideas above for speed drying.

Posibly thought " topless potters."....