Pottery Supplies

I love pottery supply yard sales!  I made a trip up to Michigan on Thursday to see my family and check out a yard sale at Crossroads Pottery.  They didn’t have the kiln shelf that I needed and I didn’t get all the posts that I wanted but I got a lot of new stuff to experiment with.  I picked up some Laguna clay and a few random dry powders.  I also got a decent scale ($3!) to replace the cheap plastic Walmart kitchen scale which was probably $5.

Bad news: this is officially my last day of summer break.  Good news: The kiln is firing as I’m typing this. Continue »

I’ve been working on a project the past few weeks while putting off my 10 page paper and in between sessions in the studio.  Go check out the Pottery Search Engine!  You can search for Information About Making Pottery, Pottery Supplies, or Pottery Videos.  You can even submit sites that I may have missed.

Bisque wares ready for glaze

Amaco warm brown stoneware.  Mostly wheel thrown.  Mugs, bowls, jugs, etc.

As you can probably tell by the picture there is a lot of glazing to do in my near future.  Something that you might be able to infer: the new outlet that my brother installed didn’t catch on fire or melt like the old one so the first firing after Operation Upgrade was a success.  The cord to the kiln got a little warm but I turned the fan on and everything went well.  It’s a good thing because my brother (and his wife) are in Beijing getting settled in to their apartment and getting “orientated” to do some teaching.

Well, I better get to work.

I love summer break!  One small project that I finished recently was to make some drying boards for my clay studio.  I only have about 6 bats so I often need to remove a thrown pot from the bat so I can use the bat to throw something else.  Usually I just set the freshly thrown vessels on my wedging table but then I always need to move them somewhere else before they have begun drying.  Sometimes this is a pain in the rear because I’ll smash or drop the very soft pots.  So now I can take my new pots directly from the wheel and onto the drying boards and they will be much easier to move around if needed.

I bought a sheet of 2′x4′ plywood from Lowes for about $6.  Then I cut off a 18″ x 24″ piece to use for things like platters or slab work.  Then I divided the rest into 12″ or 6″ squares.  I decided to go with the deluxe model so I got out my router and gave at least one side of each board an angle so it will be easier to pick up when it’s piled with clay items.

Ceramics drying boards

easy lift drying board