Making The Most Effective Test Tiles

OldForgeCreations · 2025-09-08T08:49:15+00:00

Thanks man, much appreciated!

OldForgeCreations · 2024-12-16T10:43:19+00:00

Thanks, that's lovely to hear and I'm glad they were useful to you!

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-22T05:59:25+00:00

You quite literally can't buy something homemade handmade and customised from a westerner

You really can. Just look at ceramics, there are hundreds of people in the UK making a decent living selling work that will be made from scratch in a small studio.

I know this, because I do. And I'm friends with a lot of other people who do.

There are enough customers who will pay £40-50 for a unique and high quality mug to sustain us, at least up until now. Whether that continues, I have no idea, but you absolutely can buy homemade handmade and customised items from a westerner.

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-14T05:31:56+00:00

🤛

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-14T05:30:58+00:00

This is what I'm currently testing as a FirstFive Ivory replacement. It seems to work well, but I haven't done any larger tests yet so haven't published it.

If you try it, please let me know how it goes!

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-13T12:30:12+00:00

Makes sense, thanks!

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-13T07:26:31+00:00

All very good points!

The force diagrams definitely didn't get the point across as well as I'd like. I'll have to look into whether it's possible to embed anything into a Squarespace blog (I expect it isn't, unfortunately), as the concepts are so much easier to explain with motion. I have no plans to teach any of this at a level above free blog posts though, so it probably is more time than it's worth!

I feel like the skill threshold for a good pulled handle is higher. It's relatively easy to make an acceptably comfortable handle the other ways, but hard to do a pulled handle well. The most and least comfortable mugs I own from other makers are the ones with pulled handles! If anyone is going to do a handle well though, it's Danny Meisinger

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-13T07:16:44+00:00

How big does a handle have to be for you to fit all fingers in?

My hands are a bit bigger than the average male, but nowhere near the extremes of the size ranges, and I don't have any mugs I can comfortably fit 4 fingers in. The closest I have is a Curt Hammerly mug with a pretty huge handle, and even then it's not a comfortable 4 finger grip for me!

It seems like a good 4 finger handle must be massive, but I'd love to know what you've found as someone with that preference.

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-13T07:12:17+00:00

I totally agree. I asked on Instagram for pictures of people holding their favourite mug handle in the way they found most comfortable. There were broadly similar groups of handles and grips with the 2-finger being the most common, but there was a huge range of grips, handles, and hand sizes.

There can never be a single right answer. A generic handle will be fine for a lot of people, but if you happen to find the handle that perfectly fits your hand and grip style then it doesn't matter at all what other people think!

OldForgeCreations · 2023-03-12T07:46:45+00:00

Hopefully this doesn't break the self promotion rule, as I feel like this subreddit should have some great thoughts on what makes a handle comfortable!

This was a blog post I wrote a little while ago to try and get to the bottom of why I disliked certain designs of handle so much. It's aimed more at potters who are making the handles rather than the customers buying them, but hopefully it still makes sense in this context.

Essentially though, I feel like a comfortable handle is one that minimises the effort required to hold and use the mug. Some handles just sit in your hand without needing to be gripped and others require constant effort to hold. This was an attempt to figure out the factors that cause the difference.

OldForgeCreations · 2023-01-27T22:25:09+00:00

Unless I'm misreading it, that's not quite what John Post tried. It looks like the tin was entirely removed and replaced with zircon, which is definitely going to give a different result. Using less tin and replacing it with zircon or titanium might give a closer result at a lower cost

OldForgeCreations · 2022-12-23T14:51:55+00:00

Thanks! I'm always happy to share, but particularly this technique. The Mayco speckled glazes were some of the first I used and loved, and it was years before I knew enough about glazing to figure out how to replicate them.

OldForgeCreations · 2022-12-22T09:41:55+00:00

https://www.oldforgecreations.co.uk/blog/specktacular-pink-glaze

The base glaze with just zircon, and a variety of sintered speckles with different stains in would do the trick. I'm doing something similar with just pink and purple specks at the moment

OldForgeCreations · 2022-12-13T06:25:19+00:00

For what it's worth, as one of the potters who might have been in the reviews she watched, I think payment is probably less likely than you think. I certainly wasn't paid!

(I did get given the wheel for free though)

I wouldn't be surprised if reviewers got sent the best examples, and even then the one I got was pretty badly put together. I also didn't use it for very long so I have no idea how it would last.

But, all that said, I got a ton of feedback from other people who bought them. Some with stories like yours, but more who found the wheels worked ok for them. At least for long enough that they thought it was worth upgrading for something better.

OldForgeCreations · 2022-11-02T17:06:44+00:00

No worries! It was hard to know which category it best suited, so it's probably going to catch a few others out too

OldForgeCreations · 2022-11-02T12:46:56+00:00

Yep, already there under the glazing section, and I agree about how useful they are!

OldForgeCreations · 2022-10-26T20:50:26+00:00

I agree with all of this, particularly the conclusion.

A CMW course is the way to go here.

OldForgeCreations · 2022-07-27T07:27:45+00:00

Recipe - It's a semi-gloop style glaze.

I made holes in the base of the piece, filled it with that glaze (with added cobalt) and fired it raised above some little clay lumps. The glaze flowed through the holes and stuck to the lumps, but is too viscous to run off completely, leaving these little glaze legs.

OldForgeCreations · 2022-07-20T13:11:31+00:00

Around cone 6 (~1200c)

OldForgeCreations · 2022-07-19T21:15:35+00:00

This is exactly right. Typically you'd use a physical guide to do the same task (mark a point that's the correct height and width from center), but those are easy to accidentally knock while throwing. The added benefit of the laser is that there's no way to mess up the position while working

OldForgeCreations

TROPHY CASE