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

Recent pottery drying on the shelf

As you can tell by the picture, I’ve been pretty busy in the clay studio lately.  The past couple weeks I’ve been cranking out some wheel thrown items when I haven’t been in class or on the computer.  I worked on a bunch of different mug forms for a week or two and recently I’ve made some large bowls and jugs/vases.  I really wanted to try some different handle ideas because I feel like handles have been the most neglected part of my arsenal.  I felt I never really mastered pulling handles so I rarely enjoyed or even used the skill.  While I was making all the mugs I decided it was a good time to, in the words of Nike, “just do it.”  After pulling handles for most of the mugs I can tell that I have improved dramatically.  Sometimes I even enjoy it.

On a somewhat related note I added two more shelves to the drying shelves that I already had.  Now I can cram almost twice as much stuff onto the shelves to dry.

My brother and his wife came down a little while ago to hang out with us before they leave.  (At the beginning of August they’ll be in a little place called… China!)  My brother was nice enough to put in another light and switch down in the basement and he replaced my kiln outlet in the garage which overheated the last time I fired.  Sometime this week I hope to start loading the kiln for a bisque fire.

It works!  In my last post I described how I made a version of the SuperChuck.  A couple days ago I got to try it for the first time.  I threw a nice vase form and it turned out to be the perfect candidate to trim in the chuck.  The black shelf liner material I used provided enough grip and I trimmed the bottom of the vase in no time.  You can see an “in progress” shot and then a picture of the finished pot next to the chuck.

I only wish that I would have made the chuck a little taller because the other vase/bottle that I threw had a neck that was a little long for the chuck.  I got around it by wadding up some of the extra shelf liner to make the chuck thinner in the middle so the shoulder of the pot would have a place to rest.

A while ago I got an email from one of the ceramics newsletters that I’ve subscribed to and it had a video of the “Superchuck”.  In a nutshell, the device is attached to the wheel and used to trim the bottom of vessels with narrow openings or delicate rims (which would prevent them from setting upside down on the wheel).  It looked pretty convenient and not terribly hard to make so I decided to give it a try.  That was a few months ago….  I would like to think that the slow process was more about taking my time and getting it just right but that wasn’t the case at all.  The process could have been shortened quite drastically but work and graduate classes and track season got in the way a bit.

I threw the main form a few months ago and maybe a month ago I glued that to a spare bat with Liquid Nails.  Then a few weeks ago I started testing some material to glue to the chuck to prevent the pots from slipping as they rotate.  The video suggests neoprene but I would have had to order it online and I didn’t want to invest too much in case I never use this thing more than once.  I finally decided to try “Shelf Liner” material.  Yeah, the stuff you line shelves with…  It was pretty cheap and it seemed to have the attributes that I was looking for.  I measured it out and cut it and then glued it to the chuck with Krazy glue.  It seems to be on there pretty tight.  And the material seems to offer pretty good grip.  As soon as I throw something decent, I’ll trim it with this “Superchuck” and see if mine works as well as the one in the video.  I’ll even try to remember to post my results here.

New posters and pictures for the clay studio

I recently noticed how uninspiring my clay studio was and decided to spruce it up a little.  I found a few old posters I’ve had since college and found some pictures of pottery that I like (mostly on the internet).  I slapped them up on my walls and all of a sudden I feel much more inspired!  Maybe this summer I’ll get some interesting quotes printed off and taped to the wall.  In the picture you can see the wall by my wheel.  I also put a few pictures on the opposite wall and on the door.  I’ve still got a lot of empty space so if you have something interesting I could hang up, send it my way.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on improving my clay studio here and there.  I put in a few more shelves and cleaned the whole thing not too long ago.  Below you should be able to see a few pictures of the new set up.  I rearranged the glazing area and added a shelf near the wheel.  I’m also trying to get some things together to hang on the walls for information and inspiration purposes.

I built the shelf by the wheel out of some spare wood that I had.  Some shelves were on sale at Menards so I bought some and set them up in the corner of the glazing area.  I also switched around the long skinny table and the tall metal shelf along the wall under the window.

If I can squeeze it in sometime I’ll try to post some pictures from the egg hunt at Crossroads or tell about a painting I finished, what I’ve been doing on the internet, or  some of the other things that have been happening.

Here is my biggest project from Christmas Break.  I wanted a place to photograph some of my more appealing ceramic items.  I started thinking and designing a few months ago.  When Christmas Break finally rolled around I put my plan into action.  Since I don’t have large quantities of empty space I decided to make it collapsible.  You can see the whole thing in action and a few test shots below.  Not bad for my first attempt…

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Last weekend I was hard at work in the studio.  I not only made a few small clay pieces, I also improved the studio a little bit.  I got tired of walking all over to get a bat when I was ready to throw so I upgraded my wheel table to include a bat holder.  It can hold a total of eight bats at a time and is conveniently located under my wheel table to the left as I am sitting at the wheel.  I also decided that I needed  little more shelf space.  I put a larger shelf above the original glaze shelf which hangs over the glaze table.  Now I have room for glazes, tools and bisque pieces that are ready to be glazed, all within reaching distance of the clay table.  So now I’ll probably have to start some sort of exercise program since I won’t be walking back and forth across my studio every few minutes.

This past weekend I threw a couple small lidded vessels.  Perhaps there will be pictures available on this very site at some time.

This past weekend I spent most of Saturday installing a vent system for my kiln.  I attached the Vent Master to the wall and then put some metal tubes up through the ceiling of the garage, across the attic a few feet and then out the back of the house through the soffit.  The hardest part was squeezing up into the corner of the attic while trying to stay on the boards that I laid across the joists.  And I didn’t fall through the ceiling or impale my head on the nails sticking through the roof so I would say that it was a successful venture just staying alive.  But I got everything connected and sealed up so the next time I fire I should be able to vent the kiln without running a tube out through the door.  I guess we’ll see what happens…  And if you didn’t notice, I learned how to put hyperlinks in my post!  If you aren’t sure what a soffit or a joist is you can click on the words to find out.  (I had to look them up to be sure that I had the right term myself).  Below you can see some pictures of the new vent system:

I added another shelf above the clay table so I had a place to put my tools. It was a little tricky getting it attached to the support beams above but I finally made it work. In the future I’ll probably add some more shelves to the walls so I have more room for pieces to dry.

I also made a nice long shelf over by the sink so I can dry my tools after I clean them.

And here are some of the current pieces that I’m working on. Just some basic items to test the mid-fire clay and glazes. I’m using Amaco’s warm brown stoneware and buff firing stoneware.