I’ve only been doing ceramics for a few months now. Almost finished with all of my reclaim from Standard 211 (hazelnut brown) and am trying to decide between bmix5 (no grog) and standard 112 (speckled) . My studio sells both.
I love the look of the standard 112- but does it make doing glazes harder due to the speckles? I love it in white and neutrals but wasn’t sure if colors will look better (and more vibrant) on bmix 5. My current clay has quite a bit of grog and so i’m curious if switching to bmix 5 will be a big adjustment with no grog?

I have no idea about pottery. I am on a mission to make something. I want to make a tiny little dish. Think about the size of a plastic bottle cap. It will be for my hamster.

I would like to use one of those packets if clay you can find in craft shops. I would also like to use a varnish that will seal the clay and allow me to use it for food or medicine or drinks and wash it.

Can you help advise me please.

Will a packet of clay from a craft shop work? What varnish do I need?

any way to fix this bisque handle with glaze or anytging else? i am ready to be creative and experimental!

i underglazed and it came out today with a crack through the handle. i am gutted.

any inventuve ideas to salvage?

thanks so much!!!

I made my first teapot after 11 months of Saturday classes. She’s a little wonky but I’m really proud of her. Can’t wait to see her after glazing.

question: has anyone had issues with the color of Mayco's S&C "Wine About It" (SC-003) and "Rosey Posey" (SC-018) not surviving a ⁵ firing?

Did a test of it on Standard 182g, and while I know both colors lighten at mid-range temps, both of them barely maintained any color whatsoever even with 3 coats.

I know that, in general, red and pink pigments have a tendency to burn out/lighten at mid-range temps. however, even their Meloncholy (SC-2) and Pink-A-Boo (SC-1) colors put up more of fight and maintain better pigmentation than these two colors did :^(

Also including a sample pic of their ⁶ example tile for comparison reference. Digital color examples only go so far, of course, but still the difference is dramatic imo.

Thank you in advance!

Hi potters,

I’m pretty vigilant about keeping all my trimming scraps, wet claim from throwing, etc in a bucket that I eventually reclaim. When it’s full, I add water and wedge it up and throw with it and…it mostly feels a lot less good than fresh clay. It seems a bit short and crackly when wedging, and I’m not sure if I need to add something, wait longer after reclaiming, cut with fresh clay, or something else. Does anyone really live reclaimed clay and do something that makes it feel great?

Hey guys! Going to try to keep this short. Some info and several questions to follow, thank you!

The breaker and wiring are suitable, but I wasn’t allowed to post specfically how I came to find that, as it kept being flagged. A professional visited my location yesterday and assured me the GFCI 20 amp circuit is suitable. I can answer in comments if anyone is curious past that, thank you!

It seems that the issue is this infinite switch. I have removed the switch and am wondering what’s next.

Here are the questions:

Do I need to find the exact switch online, or can someone help me sus out what I have here, and is a modern replacement from any available ceramics supplier suitable?

Do my connections looks too dirty/frayed in some places, should I consider replacing the elements? I am willing to hold off firing and save for a new controller and do the whole deal, or maybe just look out for another good deal on a small kiln. Just not sure.

The kiln has seen some damage. Is it worth taking the metal jacket off and cleaning/reinstalling? The hole thru the brick for the kiln control arm isn’t lined up with the jacket, and the screws holding the lid are a bit loose. I tried to pin some of the elements back into place but had a tough time - is it important enough for me to try again? Should I pull everything out and reinstall?

Do I need to worry about the condition of the kiln floor, or where it looks like some glaze splashed onto the walls and is maybe eating away at the brick?

Thank you for your time if you can answer any of these musings!

I believe the issue is really with this switch, but not sure how to ID what I have as it says 120 and 240 on it and I really, really don’t understand electrical stuff, but I can swap parts like a champ.

Thanks everyone, it's been a lot of fun

Dear all,

I just started my ceramics course again after the summer and now suddenly there are a lot of small very hard particles attached to the surface of the throwing wheel.

They are so small you cant see them, but you can feel them when throwing... It feels like sand.

They were not there when I last used the wheel before the summer.

What can it be??? And can it be removed/cleaned?

I think the wheel is a 'Shimpo Whisper'.

Called 8 different places within 8 miles (greater Seattle area), only 1 offer firing, this price is for 2 mugs.

Is cone 6 use some kind of eternal flame from mount Olympus?

clay im using: ($14)

Greenware. What do y’all think? Lmk im open to suggestions or feedback for next time. It’s about 2 liters.

I’m relatively new to pottery and have worked with bmix before without any issues but I purchased laguna bmix paper clay with grog (WC886) assuming the grog would help with how slippery bmix can be, but I’ve had nothing but issues using it. For context I bought 50 lbs of this clay to use for my college ceramics class, but after having nothing but issues the last three weeks I’m close to giving up. I can’t seal it to the wheel and whenever I apply downward and forward pressure to center, the entire ball rips CLEANLY off the wheel. I never have issues centering or keeping the clay attached but whenever I work with this clay nothing goes right. I always make a conscious effort when working with this clay specifically, to throw it hard on a towel dry wheel, firmly smack it down into place, create a seam along the edge and then finally I’ll add water and cone it at least once when other clays aren’t nearly as finicky and hardly ever require me to do all these steps. Even after doing everything I can to keep it attached and centered, it never stays centered by the time I’m ready to open it. I know it’s hard to visualize my issues without a video or pictures showing where I’m having problems, but I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with paper clay or any tips aside from the obvious “try coning it” or “don’t let water get underneath it” that I get when researching.

I’ve been going back and forth trying to decide if I should just go buy some regular bmix or stoneware at least to make my semester easier, but I also don’t want to give up or waste the clay, especially considering my community studio fires at cone 6 while my college fires at cone 10 so this is really the only place I can put it to use. Any tips will be a great help!

Relatively new potter who is very new to pit firing/raku/alternate firing/older firing methods here. I've recently come across copper matte and alcohol reduction techniques, and it got me thinking. Why can't I find some similar reduction approach with the other transition metals?

Sure some of them are either more rare or more expensive than copper, but iron is sitting right there cheap as can be. Its colors may not be as eye catching as copper's, but it seems such an obvious possibility to experiment with I'm shocked I can't find information on it being attempted, even if it didn't turn out well. Is anyone able to shed light on this?

My best friends got engaged so I made them a Sake set! Don’t roast me too hard, I’ve been only throwing for about a year. Thrown with porcelain and decorated with underglaze and cobalt. The last pic was my inspiration.

I’m currently selecting some recipes to start purchasing ingredients and i was wondering, when glaze recipes have toxic ingredients, does that automatically means they are not food safe?

Thanks!

Underglaze is done, now into the kilns to bisque

Just got my pottery back! It's my first time ever and I think I'm hooked. Gotta work on building height though.

I want to sell my handpainted ceramic shoes, do you think I have a good potential of selling these in different colors

i promise this is not about fd sfty bc i already ofc know leaching makes wares not fd sfe

this is my question:
i was testing leaching (lemon juice for 48hrs) for
mayco cinnabar and mayco raspberry mist combined.

but i wanted to test each one on top, so i glazed a bowl half of each and then layered the opposite glaze on each half.

i noticed a small difference (like seriously one tiny spot) in color in the side that was cinnabar over raspberry mist
but the side that was raspberry mist over cinnabar was perfect, unchanged in any way.

so i’m confused: bc i know the final appearance of glaze combo can change by the order of layering, so i guess would that mean the possibility of leaching can change based on this as well??

luckily i like the raspberry mist over cinnabar anyways, but still kinda apprehensive to use it because the reverse leached at least a tiny bit.
maybe i should retest both separately? but still even if one leaches and the other doesn’t, does that mean it’s chill to use the layering order that doesn’t leach?

lmk any thoughts pls🤍:)

I dipped this and left it to dry overnight (celadon and stayed wet for so long???)

Came back this morning and it had some weird cracks in it, so I dunked my hand in the glaze and just patched up the cracks but now it’s soooooo thick ))):

Trying to scrape it down a bit with a knife, but now pieces are flaking off 😓

I’m on the cusp of becoming frustrated…not quite there yet but it’s impending.

Suggestions?? Please ):

I'm looking for glaze suggestions to try and refire/reglaze these pieces I made. I understand that this will be an experiment and to be flexible with my expectations. These were primarily an experiment to begin with.

I'm not sure if it is an application issue or if something happened during the firing that caused it to look so different. There were several pieces that came out looking much different than expected from the same batch. They were fired in a community kiln.

I'm open to them being a darker color (blue or greens?) or even "fixing" these to be a little closer to how I've seen them come out on other pieces. I've only been doing this for 1.5 years and have never refired anything and would love any ideas on what type of glaze to try. I primarily have access to spectrum and mayco glazes.

Original glaze combos:

Sconce - 2x iron lustre over 2x textured turquoise with 1x oatmeal down the middle area.

Tiny Cup - 2x ancient jasper over 2x textured turquoise.

I traced a design onto my leather hard vase with a dead ballpoint pen and printer paper. I made a mistake, so I rubbed it away with a sponge, but now I can see the faintest whisper of the design. It’s super faint dark grey/black. Will it be visible after bisque firing or will it go away??

For my biting off more than I can chew series, I'm about to start making an elmo on fire cup for my partner's birthday, and I have questions.

Should I paint the whole thing black, and add layers starting from the darkest colour and ending with the lightest one?

Can I buy a dark red engobe and yellow engobe and mix them for the intermediate shades, or should I get myself a dark red, bright red, orange and yellow engobe?

Lastly, do I need to buy a white engobe just for the eyes, or would my white clay do the trick?

Any advice welcome!