Sunday, January 12, 2014

Squished pots

2014 is off to a busy start, with many orders to fill. In between, I had to squeeze in a few "I just want to make them" pots.


 It felt like forever since I made a covered oval. I am going to fire it in the gas kiln with green and shino glaze. Since I only did one, I was happy as a clam that the lid fit well. I tend to have more trouble with the lids rocking on the more elongated ovals. There is less fussing with them when it's a gentle curve.


Sometimes these small bakers are a curse. I hope they won't be this time, because I made quite a few, only committing three to carving. This is a shape I haven't made in a few years. They are done by cutting a crescent out of the bottom, then squishing them into the oval shape and filling and compressing the spot where the crescent was removed. The perfect scenario for a bottom crack. I was extra diligent with these and I am keeping my fingers crossed for nice bottoms. When they were done I decided that making them in two pieces is probably quicker and less problematic.
Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.


6 comments:

  1. I have made them both ways and find the two part method more reliable and predictable especially when I only devote a couple of sessions a year to oval bakers.Gay Smith taught a bunch of us the cut out method at a workshop a few years ago but guess what? Hers looked a lot better than mine! If I were doing a dozen a day, and made templates I would probably get the hang of it. Different strokes...

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  2. I was wondering what the squished part was, they all look great, I love your green and shino together

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  3. Inspired by a Van Gilder demo on YT, I made a square baker using his two cut method. It did OK until the glaze firing. It cracked on the bottom near the wall transition. Maybe I left the bottom edge too thick and/or the weight of the piece dragged on the kiln shelf. A little sprinkle of alumina on the kiln shelf might have helped. I never felt the want to work out the kinks. I prefer attaching a slab bottom on my shaped bakers.

    I still need to try out the slab lid technique. I saw it in PMI's latest issue. Looks fun.

    Your bakers look very nice. The carvings are fabulous as always.

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  4. Cindy - these one piece bakers are one of Bill's techniques as well. Jz (my deceased boyfriend - that sounds odd doesn't it?) and Bill were partners back in Maryland and I have a couple pots that they made that way. My cracks also showed up in the glaze firing. The other issue is keeping them flat so they don't rock.
    yeah... slab bottoms are better. I have only had occasional glaze crawling at the seams and that was only when using shino glaze.

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  5. oh, your carving, decorating, handles and shapes = delicious!

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  6. I hope your cut bottoms work out better than mine (and Dennis' and Cindy's). I tried it enough to realize that I didn't want to waste more time losing the pots.

    Your casserole looks really great too.

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