QotW: What tools that are not specifically for ceramics would you recommend a potter have in their shop?

[Pres]

Hi folks, here's another question for those starting out and trying to equip a ceramics shop.

Often we think of equipment and tools specific for ceramics, but all too many times I find myself using some non Ceramics dedicated tools in the studio. When doing kiln repairs, a good set of handled hex drivers is really helpful. Some people would say a ratchet wrench and sockets works just as well, but I have found times where I haven't been able to get the ratchet in to an area even with an extension.

I also use a good set of mini files to sharpen my trimming tools, and don't forget the vice to hold things steady while you work. I could go on and on, but wish you to list your favorites. Therefore:

QotW: What  tools that are not specifically for ceramics would you recommend a potter have in their shop?

 

best,

Pres

[Denice]

I don't have any unusual tools but I do use  tool tray inserts that I store my tools in.   They are to be used in large tool chest,  the plastic is heavy you don't need any support.  They stack inside of each other and are easy to wash out.  I am kind of a tool hoarder so I have three of them  filled.    Denice

[Min]

Not just tools but, multimeter, hammer, metric tape measure / ruler, old towels, mop, thin plastic sheeting, music / podcasts / audiobooks, diamond sanding pad.

I think that generally speaking people starting out in clay tend to get too many tools and over time pare it down to fewer essential ones. 

[Kelly in AK]

An angle grinder, masonry grinding discs and diamond cutting discs. Cordless Dremel tool, diamond bits. 

[Pres]

Yes! @Kelly in AK, I completely forgot about those, and how often I use them to clean off a bit of old shelf I use for a riser, or to clean a stilt or other area. Dremels work well with little splotches of glaze on the bottom of a pot, or in a lid gallery that does not get cleaned properly. I also use dremels to make texture sheets out of plywood.

 

best,

Pres

[Roberta12]

I agree with everything stated. I would add surform.  I use mine a lot for trimming.   

[Mark C.]

I use my bench grinder all the time for glaze runs (green course stone) and then two small dremal tools to clean up with. 

My angle grinder for shelves and bricks

Rubbing stone to smooth pot bottoms

and yes on the surform for trimming  as well. 

300 disc CD player as well as Pandora piped into studio and kiln area -must have for me on sperate volume controls

[Hulk]

Well fitted dust mask (P100 by 3M in size medium), kiln glasses*, safety glasses.

OptiVisor (magnification), adjustable/desk lamps, spot lamps, and area lighting.

New studio will have a heat pump! !!
The weather here is significantly hotter and colder than where we were afore.

Insulation against cold floor/slab and alloy castings (foot control) - rubber mats, bubble wrap.

Shelving, pegboard, countertop/work surfaces...

Drill bits (twist), calipers (cheap plastic ones), ball point pens, many buckets (2.5 quart, 1 gallon, 2 gallon, 5 gallon), large sponges (big!), notebooks.
Home made trimming tools (from hacksaw blades), repurposed items as ribs, stick tools, pointer tools...

"Ditto" everything already mentioned, with extra nods to music/sound, mop bucket, dremel, diamond dust discs, clean rags/cloths, closed container for dirty cloths (anything with even the Smallest Amount of dried clay on't, in there, else wetted).

*protection against harmful rays when looking into the kiln via peeps, and, And, protection against any superheated flying bits.
Welding glasses of proper darkness/tint, with side shields, that's what I'm using, hence, not strictly a pottery tool...

Edited March 24, 2023 by Hulk
warm feet > cold feets

[Callie Beller Diesel]

A drill that can stand up to grout mixing and a paint mixing bit if you’re going to do slurry reclaim. 

[Mark C.]

2 hours ago, Hulk said:

Well fitted dust mask (P100 by 3M in size medium), kiln glasses*, safety glasses.

OptiVisor (magnification), adjustable/desk lamps, spot lamps, and area lighting.

New studio will have a heat pump! !!
The weather here is significantly hotter and colder than where we were afore.

Insulation against cold floor/slab and alloy castings (foot control) - rubber mats, bubble wrap.

Shelving, pegboard, countertop/work surfaces...

Drill bits (twist), calipers (cheap plastic ones), ball point pens, many buckets (2.5 quart, 1 gallon, 2 gallon, 5 gallon), large sponges (big!), notebooks.
Home made trimming tools (from hacksaw blades), repurposed items as ribs, stick tools, pointer tools...

"Ditto" everything already mentioned, with extra nods to music/sound, mop bucket, dremel, diamond dust discs, clean rags/cloths, closed container for dirty cloths (anything with even the Smallest Amount of dried clay on't, in there, else wetted).

*protection against harmful rays when looking into the kiln via peeps, and, And, protection against any superheated flying bits.
Welding glasses of proper darkness/tint, with side shields, that's what I'm using, hence, not strictly a pottery tool...

Heat pumps are great-I have installed two Mr Cool units and I'm putting in a third this summer. Not needed a studio one yet but might if it gets any hotter or Natural gas prices soar again. We use the Kitchen one daily in winter.

[Kelly in AK]

@Callie Beller Diesel Yes! The sturdy drill with a mixer. Indispensable tool. 

[Chilly]

21 hours ago, Mark C. said:

bench grinder all the time for glaze runs (green course stone) and then two small dremal tools to clean up with. 

My angle grinder for shelves and brick

as a small-time amateur, it's good to hear that even the pros need to do this
 

[Min]

Even keeping the tools to a minimum it sure takes a lot of stuff to run a pottery doesn't it!

On a side note, I have used the metal paint mixers for glazes for quite some time but recently found some odd little shavings of plastic in my glaze. Guess I wore the mixers edges down enough so that they got sharp and started shaving the sides of my buckets. A few months ago I switched to one of these plastic octopus type stir whip ones, seems to be working well without cutting up my buckets or making air bubbles in the glaze.

 

. 

[Denice]

Cool mixer,  I haven't seen one like that before,  it would be much easier to clean.   When I started working with clay at home,   I had a small table that folded down on the wall, folding chair, bucket, wooden thumb,  old steak knife and sponge  and a small paragon kiln.   I shared a single car garage with my husband who worked on cars in the garage.  Everything had to fold away  so he could have room to work.  My current abundant supply of tools has happened over the last 50 years,  I haven't thrown any of them away.   I think I'll give them to my son as his inheritance.  Denice

[Mark C.]

I use the larger Jiffy mixer with 1/2 inch drill. I just wore out my 6th  or 7th head and repalced it with a new one. Bought another spare (old price 50$) as well. I seem to wear these out in a few years.Now that I'm working a bit less they should last longer.. The smaller jiffy mixer  heads I use less and they seem to really last

[Pyewackette]

On 3/21/2023 at 10:43 AM, Min said:

<snippage>

I think that generally speaking people starting out in clay tend to get too many tools and over time pare it down to fewer essential ones. 

ALL my tools are essential!  ALL of them I say!

I have the angle grinder, the dremel tool, the Opti-visor.  I have a bullseye level - which runs $3 or $4 at a hardware store but I saw on either Amazon or some pottery supply place for $15 !!!!

I have a dent puller for dipping stuff in glaze, but a lot of my stuff is too small for it to be useful.  And you have to wax the bottom for it to work.

I use a mister from Sally Beauty - works way better than any other sort I've seen.  I picked up a similar mister in the studio and started pumping away and was immediately admonished that if I used it that way I would break it.  Well I've had these for years, I pump away with them for whatever task they are currently set to, and I've never broken one.  They're also cheaper than the ones I've seen on Amazon and elsewhere.

That's the one I currently have (several actually, I use them to mist plants, pots, and sometimes even my hair) in purple, black and white.  They now have a larger one - 24 oz instead of 10 oz - which I am going to try and see if its as durable/useful.

I made a long reach sponge from a chopstick and a small section of sponge cut from a big tile sponge (Armaly Pro Plus Mortar and Grouting sponge). I also cut my regular sponges from the big one.

I used an upholstery awl to poke a hole in the folded over edge of a strip of chamois, then I made a chamois float by screwing the chamois to a cork through the poked hole and a washer to make sure the chamois didn't tear out around the screw.

I have a cheapie Dollar Tree desk organizer I use to hold my trim tools and ribs - I cut out the front of it so my ribs are more reachable, otherwise they fall down into the bottom and I can't see to grab the one I want.  Mine is turquoise, my store didn't have those colors and it was in the office supply section, not the craft section.

I have this toolbox from Harbor Freight that holds my most often used tools.  Keep in mind I have to schlep from home to either of two studios.  This is lightweight and fits perfectly in one end of a Sterilite crate, which I use to corral my tools and accoutrements when schlepping.

I'd post a few pics of how I've got that organized but its in the trunk of my son's car (he lets me drive it nearly all the time because he rarely needs it) and he has the car today.  Imagine that, he wanted his own car for the day LOL!

A reusable grocery bag from Dollar Tree fits PERFECTLY in the other end of the crate and holds all my other tools in their containers.

I schlep my crates on this foldable cart from Harbor Freight.  The crates don't fit inside the edges and the edges are slippery so I am getting some stair tape (the gritty stuff) to fix that.

The sterilite crates are wide enough to fit my bats in.  I use pool noodles (pipe insulation also works) as rim protectors for bats in the crate.  I can't stack either of my 2 current crates because the tool box needs one crate and it sticks up too high, and the bats go in another crate and they ALSO stick up too high.  So I'm getting another crate which I will cut in half, slide the top into the bottom, cutout the bottom, and stack/zip tie it to my bat crate to make a deeper crate that I can now stack the other crate on top of.  Then I have room for a heavy duty milk crate with my clay and reclaim buckets in it (I have to schlep them as well).  I'm using 1 gallon buckets with lids from Home Depot when schleppage of reclaim is required.

This works way better than what I was doing before, I don't need a bunch of bungie cords to try to tie my stuff onto a regular hand dolly and I can just lift the crates off, fold the cart and stick it in the trunk, and the crates just go in there with it.  Fancy wheeled tool dollies don't work because they stick up too high to go in my trunk (plus they require major spendage).  The hand dolly folded, but I had to take the crates off to fold it ALL the way up (and messing with the bungies was a major pain) because even with the handle down it, too, was too tall to fit in the trunk with the stuff still on it.

I have various snap-closure boxes for whatever tools aren't in the yellow tool box, some from Dollar Tree and a few Sterilite items.  I have a pencil box with my ribs in it now, before I had most of my tools in various plastic food containers that were a pain to get open and closed.  My bigger ribs (bowl ribs too wide for the pencil box) are in a sterilite snap closure container.  And on like that.

Oh, and this is my favorite usage of a non-pottery item for pottery storage:

See those weird gumdrop shaped bags in front?  Apparently you're supposed to put bras in them.  I don't.  I use regular flat bags or the drum shaped ones if they came with a laundry bag assortment.  I got some of those gumdrop shaped bags in an assortment and they sat around unused - until I decided they were perfect for schlepping my sponges and chamois thingies so they could dry and not mold (yup, plastic food containers or any other sort of plastic box were not cutting it for my wet stuff).  Keeps them together, unlost, and unmildewed.  I have one set for dark clays and one for light.

And I use a yoga mat bag (that was too small for any yoga mat I actually owned after I washed it) to schlep my towels, the sponge bags, and whatever other odds and ends I feel like sticking in there.  Easily slings over my shoulder, and my spray bottle from Sally Beauty fits in there as well.  Makes it easier for me when I have to remember what has to go inside so it doesn't freeze in the car - and that would be the clay/reclaim crate and the yoga mat sling.

I made an anti-bat-chatter thingy from that waffle-texture shelf liner.  Also in the car so no pic.

I made a "bat mate" from fake chamois for washing cars, to see if its any help when trimming as some people say the real bat mates are.  Also it works by a different mechanism from the waffle-texture shelf liner one - that one you don't wet, it just helps reduce chatter/jitter by providing a bit of padding under those crappy speedball plastic bats.  If you wet the fake chamois it provides a bit of suction (under bats with a solid bottom, not the speedballs), helps to stabilize when the bat pin holes are a little worn or if the bat is just slightly warped.  I don't think anything will help if a bat is badly warped.  Haven't had a chance to try it yet.

I'm about to make several sticky bats using Harbor Freight tool box liner, neoprene, and whatever other likely substances I can find to try.  Cut out a circle and glue it to the top of the bat for trimming. The Diamond Core ones are crazy expensive ($72/12", $82 for 14"!!!). I could buy a baltic birch bat for less than that, DC has just glued their sticky stuff to the top of a plastic Speedball bat.

I find foam bats generally won't hold the piece evenly, one side or the other can sink too deep.  I do like them for drying platters/plates bottom up - the foam helps keep the rim from distorting. I have a sheet of foam SOMEWHERE and hope to make an extra large foam bat for that purpose.

Someday I hope to try the magnetic glaze dipping solution, but I keep waffling about whether or not I've found the right sort of neodymium magnets.

OH and I'm going to get my brother to make one of these (I hope):

The tongs on the right are made from regular tongs like on the left.  My brother is a machinist, I'm pretty sure he can do this for me.  The tongs on the right grip a pot from the inside, very helpful when dipping the outside of mugs and the like.  I'm also going to ask him to make me a triangular trimmer like this:

AND some steel banding strap chatter tools.

Which reminds me of another non-pottery tool that I have, the magnetic knife strip.  Perfect for hanging up your tongs, metal spatulas, and anything else with enough steel to stick to the magnet.

[LeeU]

Much of all of the above from all of the posts, tailored to home studio/low production.  While not a "tool" per se, my most crucial non-pottery-intended item is my  UpCart that "climbs" up and down stairs-a dolly-the econo model can handle over 100 lbs...had it for years and it is essential for getting things in/out of my house & studio. I can barely lift 50 lbs of clay anymore-and even 25 is hard on a bad day, so this thing is a real blessing.