Friday 14 January 2011

making bowls

A soup bowl from yesterday
These are on one foot diameter batts. Pity pots have to shrink so much!

Handles done too.
Everything is drying so slowly, the air is cold and damp. The slurry I'm reclaiming is only being dried out by the water going into the wareboard it is sitting on.
At last I received an email from paypal, asking me to phone them....dreading the callcentre again, I did....

and instead of being told to go away and do something, which process had previously failed...

I was talked through the process as I did it! No, it wouldn't have been clear and simple without help. Even if I wasn't atall dyslexic!!

Now the wait again, to see if it has all gone well.

That deserved a god cup of coffee for recovery purposes!

Next job, to work out the cheapest way to get more clay. I've used practically all I had.
If I go and get it myself there are suppliers sixty miles away. On the other hand the clay ex-works is half the price but the factory is 142 miles away.

Goes off to do some calculations........

6 comments:

Joseph said...

Everything is drying slowly in my studio too, we have a single plug in radiator at the shop. If I want it to dry out within a fortnight it has to come home and sit near the kiln, which means we lose our dining table.

I only have two bags of clay left myself and what is in the reclaim bucket, but I can't get my plaster bat dry enough to reclaim more than 4kg of clay before it is saturated again.

I am questioning what new clay to get myself though, really don't like V9A its too yellow

gz said...

I'm using Potclays 1142.
I like an almost white clay, it makes the colours more vibrant/intense.
It all depends what glazes you are using and how you are firing too.

I'm not keen on using plaster to dry clay, apart from the danger of contamination.The clay just doesn't behave right.
Try an old pair of jeans(sew across the bottom of the legs!)-or an old cotton pillowcase- hang them up to drip!
Or a large bisqued bowl.

Get samples of clay and use and fire them asap, before you run out of what you have!

Zhoen said...

Fans and space heaters? I begin to appreciate having only worked clay in a high desert.

Mr. Young said...

I have to use air conditioners and fans to get my wares to dry. Left on a shelf it would take forever in this humidity.

Mr. Young said...

Oh! I forgot the nice coating of mold and mildew if left on a shelf in this climate.

gz said...

good and bad in whatever weather we've got!