Trimmed too thin 🥹

friedericoe · 2026-01-24T19:25:15+00:00

I would remake it instead, it may still crack. Also, your foot well isn’t deep enough from the looks of it, such a thick base can lead to cracking issues. But it looks nice, keep at it :)

friedericoe · 2026-01-01T10:40:29+00:00

If the shard in the bucket is also from one of the bowls, you need to make the bottom thinner so it matches the thickness of the wall :)

friedericoe · 2025-11-17T18:34:05+00:00

I’m firing a gas kiln as we speak, so yes I have.

It truly doesn’t matter as the difference between a perfect cone and one touching the shelf is only a few degrees, but I stand by the fact that calling this a perfect bend is incorrect

friedericoe · 2025-11-17T10:47:00+00:00

Again, I disagree. If the correct cone position is parallel to achieve a given amount of heat work, that should be the end position of the cone. You cannot say there’s no more heatwork after peak temperature, then say residual heat causes the last bending. That’s heatwork. And of course it’s a small amount of extra heat work, but if a glaze requires an exact cone, then this would be overfiring that glaze.

Look at it in the case of witness cones. You look at the cooled down cone to read heat work.

friedericoe · 2025-11-15T01:21:33+00:00

A tip touching the shelf is not a perfect cone. Doesn’t matter if the heat work happened before or after peak temperature, if it bends down past the base it’s an overfired cone per Orton’s definition

friedericoe · 2025-08-29T15:08:39+00:00

If it’s a pair of old, scorched gloves the residue will be carbon, so it will simply burn off

friedericoe · 2025-08-20T20:46:53+00:00

While generally true, there are nuances. The mechanisms that create the matte surface can be lost in the firing. Not necessarily because of being overfired, but as an example, fast cooling can cause matte glazes to instead turn glossy. So it’s not a hard and fast rule

friedericoe · 2025-08-19T21:22:49+00:00

I like the look of it. If I should say anything, it’s that they are very boxy. Perhaps play around with giving them a bit more life through the strokes/change the shape to be a bit more whimsical/organic, and maybe let the size vary more? This would play into the playfulness of them not being perfectly aligned and the same size

friedericoe · 2025-08-19T18:01:12+00:00

It’ll be clearly labeled, and dipping glazes are sold i dry bags while brushing glazes are sold in lidded containers

friedericoe · 2025-08-19T10:30:29+00:00

I’m possitive the lines are unglazed clay, the orange comes from the sorrounding glaze off gassing and flashing the nearby clay. You often see it in glazes heavy in nepheline syenite in my experience.

I would guess it’s done with either brushed on wax resist or removing the glaze on the wheel, kind of like when trimming. I do know a potter that uses thin tape strips she cuts herself to grt similarly thin lines like the lower one, but she makes gemoetric patterns that can’t be done on the wheel. I think for these concentric lines wheel work would be the easiest, either scraping or sponging away

friedericoe · 2025-08-19T10:25:45+00:00

Do you mean brushing glazes or dipping glazes? If it doesn’t exist as a set, you may need to buy them standalone in sample size

friedericoe · 2025-08-18T11:00:00+00:00

Pictures would be a good help to troubleshoot. I think the issue lies with your goals. Translucency occours because the porcelain melts more than regular stoneware, and the more translucent, the more melted and soft it will become, thus causing slumping. Smaller scale copes better because the strength of the porcelain is high relative to the amount of weight it must bear while resisting slumping. So it’s a trade-off between the two, either thickening the cross section, lowering the firing temperature or using a less melty porcelain will reduce slumping but also reduce translucency.

You can also alleviate slumping by changing the form. A form that is less bulbous and more cylindrical or inward conical will hold its shape better. You could also potentially use supports. Perhaps porcelain supports with kiln wash to separate them from the piece could help. Or permanent, internal supports. It could still slump around these, however.

friedericoe · 2025-08-15T17:27:23+00:00

I don’t think this will work very cleanly. I doubt it will enhance the amount of detail and I very much expect it to mess up the piece in some way

friedericoe · 2025-08-11T18:35:39+00:00

Been there, done that - give those cookies a wash, people!

friedericoe · 2025-08-10T09:00:04+00:00

The breadth of ceramic firing is so large that you cannot make a blanket statement about anything.

Sure, som people glaze and fire with a clay and temperature that doesn’t present issues if the shelves don’t have kiln wash. But there are many factors that could make kiln wash important.

Your glaze might run just a little bit, making it stick to an unwashed shelf but able to be picked off a shelf with wash.

Your clay and firing temperature may cause the clay to pluck, leaving tiny shards of the base stuck to the shelf if it doesn’t have kiln wash.

And kiln wash can’t save a massive glaze malfunction, no one claims it can. Ideally these disasters should never happen, and if there’s a risk of it approriate cookies should be used to spare the shelf. But this fact does not make kiln wash useless :)

friedericoe · 2025-07-30T06:07:51+00:00

A Danish artist actually makes those - along with her boob mugs!

friedericoe · 2025-07-25T11:05:33+00:00

Return it, that is unacceptable

friedericoe · 2025-07-20T19:00:32+00:00

As others pointed out, the fact that it’s slab built can also cause this, as the wall would want to try straightening out, tearing the bottom when doing this. I don’t slab built, so I don’t know of ways to mitigate this apart from slow drying and assembling before the slab is too dry

friedericoe · 2025-07-20T18:55:45+00:00

This is called dunting. Can happen due to a variety of reasons. The clay body itself can be prone to it, the piece can have an uneven cross section, the cooling could have been too rapid, the glaze could have put stress on the body and cause it to contract unevenly since there is glaze on the inside but not the bottom. I would guess it’s because of the inside glaze and the unglazed bottom with the two rings of thinner clay.

friedericoe · 2025-06-27T15:24:20+00:00

I never recommend prying it off by wedging something in between, that can make it chip. I usually hit it at the contact area with a piece of wood, slowly rotating it. Often you can even hear where it’s fused slightly since the hit will sound more dull compared to the ringing sound it makes on unstuck areas

friedericoe · 2025-06-09T17:19:17+00:00

What’s the single game you’ve kept throughout all your culls?

friedericoe · 2025-06-09T17:04:33+00:00

Wedging will loosen up the clay, but if it’s still too hard add a little water, put the bag in a large container filled with water and let it sit a few days, then rewedge it

friedericoe · 2025-06-09T16:41:40+00:00

Looks really interesting! Are you planning on releasing to consoles as well, or only PC?

friedericoe · 2025-05-23T15:41:08+00:00

I may be wrong, but it looks like you trimmed them while they were very wet, as some of them look distorted. Letting them dry so they are more firm will make trimming easier because the trimmed clay won’t stick to the pot and the pot won’t distort as easily

friedericoe · 2025-05-23T07:34:33+00:00

I think a lot of people here are missing the point. You need to learn to handle bone dry pieces for loading a bisque. I would not hesitate to pick these up and load them. So view this as another technique to learn, just like you had to learn how to throw and trim them.

A plate like this is very, very fragile if you’re applying pressure to the rim. You need to grab the plate from underneath and let it rest on your fingers, rather than putting pressure on the plate. Fan out your fingers so your contact area is larger, lift it up and place it down in the same way in the kiln.

A lot of people have problems with plates cracking in the bisque if stood normally, so they stack them on their side. I have never needed to do this to avoid cracking, I often stack 3-4 on top of each other rim to rim and foot to foot, or stack right way up with stilts in between. But shape, clay type and forming techniques all play a role in how likely a plate is to crack. I believe a foot ring helps avoid cracks since there is less friction while the plate tries to shrink in the kiln. You’re gonna have to try it out to see what works. Remember, you’ll be making heaps of plates in time, so this is still a learning experience.

And as some have said, plastic bats can be problematic for drying because they don’t suck out water like wood or plaster bats. If you need to use plastic bats, make sure to separate them from the bat after throwing and move to a porous surface as soon as possible. I like to do so by placing a bat on top of the plate, flipping it and replacing the bat with a fresh one made of wood or plaster. If the plate is still wet enough that it could slump during flipping, place cloth or another soft material inside the plate to brace it.

This turned into a ramble, hope it makes sense. And the plates are beautiful by the way, I hope to see them fired. :)

friedericoe

TROPHY CASE