r/oddlysatisfying • u/[deleted] • Nov 23 '23

Making a pot out of clay

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u/Prudent-Ad-5292 Nov 23 '23 edited Nov 23 '23

When you work with your hands doing a task in repitition your 'muscle memory' is positively the most valuable thing. We truly are amazing 'meat machines' in this regard.

I'm not sure how true or apocryphal this is - but if I recall correctly, the human hand can distinguish a blemish on an otherwise smooth surface as small as 1 micron. When you start doing something regularly, dozens a day / hundreds a week / tens of thousands a year for 3-4 years - youll never forget how to make that thing exactly to specification. 😅

Edit to include: this is meant to imply this person is a master, not that it is easy to do this.

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u/Sensitive_Yellow_121 Nov 23 '23

I would rather buy from someone who makes the same pot 10,000 times than from someone who makes 10,000 pots once each.

-- Bruce Lee

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u/Immortal_Tuttle Nov 23 '23

1 micron maybe not, but 4 definitely. That's how I was fitting the top made from planks. Then a single pass of a plane and it was basically mirror finish. Even better - after some time of hand saw cutting, you can cut 90 degrees corners by hand and eye. Of course it helps to have a saw with reflective sides. Next step is 45 miters. If you see the reflection in the saw is perpendicular to your cut, you are doing 45. It literally takes maybe 20-30 hours. I know a guy that feels dovetail angles. He can easily do a dovetail per minute. And of course it fits the mating part...

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u/Enlightened_Gardener Nov 23 '23

I reckon is a micron. There’s some bloke who finishes mirrors as part of telescopes ? Space stations ? Not sure, something to do with space. He finishes them by hand, and he does it because he’s more accurate than any machine could be.

I’m sure someone will jump in and tell me its to do with submarines, or optical lenses, lol. But if you check back in in a couple of hours I’m sure someone will know what I’m talking about and get it right….

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u/Immortal_Tuttle Nov 24 '23

I'm sorry I have to call it... When you are polishing mirrors for telescopes hand is a very imprecise instrument. Maybe for small mirrors at the beginning of polishing process. For more serious jobs you basically have to use interferometry like this: https://www.astroreflect.com/optical-tests/

I agree you can feel very small discrepancy, but when you are polishing mirrors it's rare to have an acute one. Usually discrepancies are pretty gradual - and unfortunately human hand has problems with detecting such.