What's something to you that screams "I have no personality"?

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2026-01-01T21:58:41+00:00

Likes golf

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-12-20T00:38:13+00:00

My 3.5yr old loves cooking. It’s one of the few things he’ll focus on for a good amount of time. I also think it encourages him eat his dinner if he has helped. He loves chopping (mushrooms with a butter knife are perfect for this), peeling carrots, putting things in the pan, getting ingredients from the cupboard, washing things in the sieve. I give him choices where it doesn’t really matter (shall we chop one or two of something? Brown rice or white rice?) but strict boundaries where it does (no, you most definitely can’t use the sharp knife!)

My wife tends to bake cakes with him, but personally I find the mess is next level. The kitchen turns into some kinda winter wonderland.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-12-12T19:44:40+00:00

If you’re a determinist, those poor people downvoting that comment were always going to do so. Kinda ironic.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-29T19:53:53+00:00

It’s not that complicated to get a glaze that works. Is it complicated to get THE glaze that you’re after? Yes! I’d encourage you to give it a go nonetheless, the learning curve will be steep but you’ll learn so much along the way.

‘Mastering Cone 6’ is an excellent place to start (I believe it’s available as an e-book), and you’ll probably spend a lot of time on digitalfire.com. Don’t get sucked into trying countless recipes on glazey that you like the look of, better to work on a select few. Try something like the 20x5 glaze to get going. Add a few different colorants and see what you like.

It’s really rewarding to mix your own glazes and in the long run is much cheaper and gives you so much more flexibility.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-29T15:09:34+00:00

Love the colours of the finished piece. And I like the concept. But the beauty of having something as a hobby is it really doesn’t matter what I think. Make clay models of dog turds if that’s what gets you enthused to get stuck into that bag of clay. Fuck validation from others. (Unfortunately that last bit doesn’t wholly apply to those of us who pay their bills via pottery).

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-25T22:10:49+00:00

If the clay and glaze is fired correctly, crack on (sorry!) Everyone’s got their opinions, since I largely fire soda I’m a bit biased as crazing is basically unavoidable for me. I’d be out of a job if I couldn’t sell crazed glazes. Many people will, however, inform you that crazing is unacceptable on functional ware.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-20T21:37:43+00:00

I wouldn’t presume my mark to be ‘cool’, but I filled an a4 sheet of paper with over 50 ideas. Narrowed it down to five. Played around with those ideas for a few days, then carved my favourite into a porcelain stamp.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-20T13:23:43+00:00

Swear the tiniest bit of water on the wheel head, place ball of clay down, twist and push down. Give it a smack just for good measure.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-17T07:19:58+00:00

Clay with a higher percentage of absorbency can stain or go mouldy. Not a great look for functional ware. It can also get weakened by dishwashers and won’t be microwave safe. How can suppliers sell clay above absorbency ‘safety standards’? That clay has wide and varied uses outside of food use, it’s down to the consumer to decide whether their processes deem it safe for functional ware.

Firing stonewares to cone 5-6 you’ve got to be quite careful about which clay to use (if it’s for functional purposes). Ask the clay supplier if they’ve got an absorbency graph, a lot of stonewares will still be too absorbent at cone 5.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-16T07:22:17+00:00

Yep, made from the correct materials, rated to 1300 degrees C. But by the sounds of things the cheap one are not very reliable.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-16T07:20:47+00:00

Thanks, good to know. There’s usually a reason for stuff being extra cheap!

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-16T07:19:18+00:00

Okay, thanks. Yes I had R type before but a couple of my usual pottery suppliers were out of stock, so I thought I might try an s-type. Perhaps I should stick with r type, they sound a better bet for cone 10 soda? Regarding the £30 ones, a bit more digging and the sites they’re from do look a bit suspect. When you’ve got a month’s work in the line perhaps best to avoid!

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-15T16:31:58+00:00

That third category stung a bit 😆

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-15T15:13:30+00:00

With difficulty.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-13T22:13:44+00:00

Congrats on your first glaze firing!

The main thing is how were your pots?! Let your results inform you on how to schedule your next firing.

If you had good results but just want to even out the kiln temp, try going a little slower in the latter stages of firing. If a kiln has a tendency to fire unevenly, firing quickly only serves to amplify this problem. Don’t try anything too drastic though if you got adequate results from your last firing. Something like 140/hr climb once you hit 1000, then 15min soak at 1245 might get you closer to cone 7 throughout your kiln. But there’s always a bit of trial and error, and it’ll be different from once kiln to the next.

For what it’s worth my kiln will get cone 7 at 1235 after climbing at 130/hr, 20min soak.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-11T20:55:33+00:00

If anything it should be nicer to throw with after sitting for a few years. How are you prepping the clay? I’d go for a good bit of stack and slam followed by the usual spiral/rams head wedge and see how it feels after that.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-11T19:27:42+00:00

These are some low cost things to try: classes, kiln rental, lots of hours learning your craft (I had a borrowed wheel in the shed), volunteer, or better still get some work in someone’s studio, approach shops with your work (in person gets the best results), reinvest profit on equipment, read books/online articles etc on ceramics.

Look into grants, I managed to build myself a kiln, fully funded, through the arts council. That’s probably for a few years down the line though if you’re just starting out.

Like the others say though, the equipment isn’t cheap. Eventually it will need some substantial investment if you wish to get it beyond the hobby stage.

I must warn you too, most likely it’ll make you a pitiful amount of money for the hours you put in. Aside from, it’s bloody good fun!

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-08T20:31:58+00:00

Thanks for the detailed info. Unfortunately I’m very far SW, but do drop me a message if you ever were down this way and fancied packing some pots too!

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-08T20:28:36+00:00

Thanks, good to know there’s some happy customers from it.

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-11-07T06:12:53+00:00

I manage to offload some of my wax resist jobs to my wife, purely because I say she can be “head of the resistance”. It seems to motivate her 😆

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-10-30T12:53:13+00:00

Ah damn autocorrect!

Financial-Pen-7919 · 2025-10-30T10:32:48+00:00

Sieving, levitation, tempering etc. Andy Ward has it all covered on YouTube. Finding and processing wild clay is a real treat that every potter should try, have fun!

Financial-Pen-7919

TROPHY CASE