We continued to work on teapots this week. Today we worked on the spout. Gary showed us how to throw a spout on the wheel. You only need a tiny amount of clay, maybe 1/4 pound. You can also throw it off the hump.
You center, and then open, and you can open all the way to the wheel (but don't have to; it is easier to take it off the wheel when you're done if you leave a lot at the bottom). Then, to open, you have to open more at the bottom and then try to keep the top as narrow as possible. You kind of pull toward your opposite shoulder. To compress the clay a bit toward then end, you stick a thin rod of some kind in there (like the other end of the needle tool) and angle it so it's against the inside wall. Then take one finger and run it up the outside along where the stick is. You also probably need to do a fair amount of choking to narrow the top up even more. Finally, slice the very tip off with the needle tool. You want to keep the edge sharp so that it pours well. If the spout opens up at the end, like a tulip, you will get your hot water to come spraying out everywhere when you pour.
So when I finished making two spouts, I cut them and put them to dry a bit on a board. Then I trimmed my round form for the teapot. I left a lot of clay on the bottom, but I wasn't sure how far down I'd opened it, so I was conservative when trimming and ended up with an interesting double ripple effect for the foot. I also trimmed my two pint glasses. (They'll probably shrink down to smaller than pint sized, sadly.)
I also threw a couple other things, but they didn't come out. I got another weird collapsing thing that might be fun once it's glazed, we'll see.
Finally the spouts were dry enough to attach. You cut the bottom of the spout off at an angle that will fit the shape of your pot well. Then you hold it up to the pot and trace around where it will go with your needle tool (just enough so you know the shape, not to cut anything out). Then you perforate the area you traced so that there are several small holes that the water will flow through on its way out of the spout. Then just slip and score the spout and the traced area, and attach it! I had to cut the bottom off my spout twice cause the first time made a kind of awkward angle. The second cut was much steeper and fit much better. Actually, I should confess that Gary made the second cut for me cause I was standing there trying to fit the awkward spout on and it wasn't working, and I had a confused look on my face. Thanks Gary!
Next week, we'll attach a handle and it will be ready to fire! I'm so thrilled.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Hana - Winter quarter 2008
I'm taking pottery again this quarter. I'm pretty excited about it, even though I was kind of exhausted by the class near the end of last quarter. I think with the days getting longer again it'll be a bit easier to keep my energy up.
There have already been three classes. I missed the first class on Jan 10 because I had to get a root canal that day. That in itself is a long story, but not pottery related, so I'll skip it. Suffice to say, I wasn't up for a class that evening.
Jan 17th was my first class. Looks like a smaller group than last quarter, I noticed that several people from last quarter hadn't returned (included a couple people that I found vaguely annoying (this one woman always smelled like mosquito repellent), and one person who was pretty quiet that I seemed to quietly get along with), but otherwise everyone there had also been there last quarter. So it wasn't like going to a new place with new people, and therefore a little easier to do. It didn't seem like I missed much the previous week. Apparently this quarter we're going to work on teapots. yay! That has been a long term goal for me, so I was pretty excited.
We started on 1/17 by throwing a round form, then making a certain shape on top. Once you have a fairly thick rim on the piece, take a 90 degree tool and press it diagonally into the rim. So, imagine if the rim forms an arc or about 90 degrees, you take the corner of the tool and touch the arc at 45 degrees and press it in radially. At the same time, put one finger into the pot and press up from underneath. This creates a little edge inside the rim for the lid to rest on. It's called a "galley".
Using calipers, measure the rim diameter and the galley diameter. We then threw a variety of lids to fit the pot, where the main lid part was smaller than the rim diameter. If you throw a flat bottomed lid, that's all you have to do. But a better kind of lid has a part that goes down into the galley so that when you pour, the part sticking down there holds it in place, so your lid doesn't fall off when you pour the tea. Gary said the part that sticks down should be about a third of the diameter of the galley. You also have to be careful that the part that sticks down has a smaller diameter than the galley. It's a lot to think about.
Then, just to relax a bit, I threw a couple large mugs. They are roughly the size of a pint glass. I'm not intending to attach handles. I just wanted to do something simple after the work of teapots.
There have already been three classes. I missed the first class on Jan 10 because I had to get a root canal that day. That in itself is a long story, but not pottery related, so I'll skip it. Suffice to say, I wasn't up for a class that evening.
Jan 17th was my first class. Looks like a smaller group than last quarter, I noticed that several people from last quarter hadn't returned (included a couple people that I found vaguely annoying (this one woman always smelled like mosquito repellent), and one person who was pretty quiet that I seemed to quietly get along with), but otherwise everyone there had also been there last quarter. So it wasn't like going to a new place with new people, and therefore a little easier to do. It didn't seem like I missed much the previous week. Apparently this quarter we're going to work on teapots. yay! That has been a long term goal for me, so I was pretty excited.
We started on 1/17 by throwing a round form, then making a certain shape on top. Once you have a fairly thick rim on the piece, take a 90 degree tool and press it diagonally into the rim. So, imagine if the rim forms an arc or about 90 degrees, you take the corner of the tool and touch the arc at 45 degrees and press it in radially. At the same time, put one finger into the pot and press up from underneath. This creates a little edge inside the rim for the lid to rest on. It's called a "galley".
Using calipers, measure the rim diameter and the galley diameter. We then threw a variety of lids to fit the pot, where the main lid part was smaller than the rim diameter. If you throw a flat bottomed lid, that's all you have to do. But a better kind of lid has a part that goes down into the galley so that when you pour, the part sticking down there holds it in place, so your lid doesn't fall off when you pour the tea. Gary said the part that sticks down should be about a third of the diameter of the galley. You also have to be careful that the part that sticks down has a smaller diameter than the galley. It's a lot to think about.
Then, just to relax a bit, I threw a couple large mugs. They are roughly the size of a pint glass. I'm not intending to attach handles. I just wanted to do something simple after the work of teapots.
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