Tap Centering - Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's magic, you know!

[Pyewackette]

Thanks to this guy I finally figured out why I haven't been able to tap center any more. 

I was starting to think I hallucinated ever being able to tap center.  Let alone thinking it was so easy, as I had.  But this video finally showed me where I was going wrong.  How was the woman who can't tell her left from her right and throws backwards screwing it up?

How did you guess!  That's right, I was trying to tap center a clockwise wheel with my right hand.  Switch to my left hand and voila!  Suddenly tap centering was easy again.  I can tap center even my off kilter stuff in nothing flat.  I tap centered a chuck the instructor made for me (so its as close to perfectly round as is humanly possible) in two taps.

The slow motion stuff in the beginning while he talked about the direction of your hand in relation to the direction of rotation had it clinched for me in the first few minutes.

I'm so full of myself now!

[Pyewackette]

OMG I couldn't even get that right!  I was SUPPOSED to be trying to tap center with my RIGHT hand and I was ACTUALLY trying to tap center with my LEFT hand.  The RIGHT hand going clockwise is the RIGHT (correct) hand for me.  I'm more slap centering as well, fingertips don't seem to work for me all that well.  I feel like I have more control over the strength of the tap-slap with the sort of slapping motion he demonstrates than stabbing the end of my index finger at the bowl.

Life is tough when you're over 60 and still can't tell your right from your left, even when you make the effort to try to keep it straight.

AAAARGH!  

Edited March 2, 2023 by Pyewackette

[Hulk]

Lots of practice, that appears key, as Florian Gadsby demonstrates in his video clip on the subject*.
He's tapping on the away side, but between three and four thirty or so?

Looks like John Hasegawa is tapping on the toward side, but at less than nine o'clock, the pot is moving away from his fingertips.

Both nod to the many varied approaches, which I appreciate!

Left hand seems natural to me (I work clockwise). I haven't progressed much with tap centering, although Florian's video has inspired me to practice more.
I might yet find a way to be consistent, however, it's been like throwing a baseball is for me (now), I can do it, but every once in a while - too often - a ball goes sailing off in a wholly unintended direction, which I attribute to nerve damage. So, I can throw underhand consistently, and left-handed consistently, if not very well.
I can tap a few times effectively, then oops. The oops taps occur too often, oh well.

I hadn't seen any of Hasegawa's clips, thanks for the intro!

*Florian Gadsby
How to Tap Centre Pots on the Potter's Wheel - YouTube

 

[Pyewackette]

@Hulk Hasegawa starts in somewhere between 9 and 10 o'clock and actually makes contact at about 9, then the motion of his hand follows the bowl as it rotates.  I think that gives him more control over the strength and direction.

I'm doing about the same only with my right hand, at between 2 and 3 o'clock.  Similarly my hand follows the arc of rotation but from the other side.  It works extremely well for me.  I couldn't remember how I'd done it before, I was self taught and its been 10 or 12 years.  So I was copying everybody on the internet that I could find, including a guy who had a counting method I was just SURE would work for me (but didn't).  I was doing JUST EXACTLY what they did.  None of it worked.  I was about to give up.  Then I saw Hasegawa's video and the light went on. 

I can't do it the Gadsby way, or the Lin way, or the Leach way, or any other way I've seen demonstrated, and had Hasegawa not gone to the extent of actually talking about angles of rotation and given a very slow demonstration where I could actually SEE what he was doing, I might still be hopelessly trying to get things centered with the pencil-mark-stop-shift method.  And then being afraid to take it off and fix something because then I'd have to center it again.  Which wouldn't be the SAME center.

I think that's why its so hard to "teach" tap centering - everybody has a slightly different way that their eye-hand coordination works that they just have to shift around to find.  If you keep doing exactly what somebody else does but that just doesn't happen to work for you of COURSE you will be frustrated and give up.  Once you find YOUR sweet spot - and if I can do it ANYBODY can- its so easy its ridiculous.  You just have to know that your way may be nothing like whatever great master you are following. And keep trying different things over and over until you hit the sweet spot.  Not just the same thing over and over that just won't work for you.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Pyewackette

[Callie Beller Diesel]

It’s also helpful to learn on something that’s wider than it is tall. Shallow bowls or plates, or even regular bowls are easier than something like a cup or a mug. 

[Pyewackette]

@Callie Beller Diesel The first thing I centered since I forgot how after a 10-12 year gap was a tall hour glass shaped chuck LOL!  But it did have a wide base so you're still accurate.

I knew how once so I guess I wasn't so much "learning" as remembering.  Once I started using the correct hand at the correct position it felt totally natural.  I wonder how I ever managed go forget to start with.  Except, well - melty brain syndrome was all part of the untreated Addison's thing, and its never TOTALLY gone away.  I don't think we ever get over trying to rely on our memory even when its not all that reliable anymore.