Category: Favourites

Here are 6 tools I can’t go without when sitting down to throw (as well as my pottery wheel of course!) I’ll let you in on my tried and true favourites. All of these products are available online if you think they might help you throwing those clay shapes.

1. Ribs – These ones aren’t made out of bone but instead wood, metal and plastic. My favourites are the mud tools ribs that come in a variety of shapes and colour-coded flexibilities. I use the The ‘Very soft’ Red Shape 1, The ‘Soft Flex’ Yellow Shape 2 and The ‘Medium Flex’ Green Shape 4.

The Red one is great for the initial pulling and shaping, this super flexible rib is easier to work with the soft clay.

The Yellow one is more rigid, I find this better for cleaning up the shape of the thrown shape and removing all that clay slip. That sharp right angle lets you clean up the base as well.

I find the Green one is better to use when trimming, the harder polymer can actually scape the clay and act as a trimming tool to clean up and smooth the surface. I even use it as a burnishing tool on leather hard clay. Buy directly from Mudtools or most clay suppliers including Bath Potters and Scarva.

MUDTOOLS Shape 1 Rib

I’ve also used wooden ribs which depending on the type of wood, can swell and degrade. I find the best way to avoid this is to steer clear of ribs made of ‘Boxwood’ and instead go for a hardwood or bamboo.

There are also ribs that can create some fun textures and shapes. I use a bamboo throwing rib from Bathpotters that gives a neat and clean bee hive shape.

Bamboo Throwing Rib

Also you can use Cake decorating cake scrapers, used to scrape icing away from the surface of a cake to create patterns. I bought a set from amazon and the result can be very good. They are almost awkwardly too tall but the variety in one set is fun to play around with.

2. Diddler – A strange name for a sponge on the end of a stick but there you go. Diddlers are helpful because they allow you to remove water from a vessel when the vessel is too narrow to remove it by hand with an ordinary sponge. They also allow you to remove some of the clay slip from the internal wall. Yes they are a simple design, but sometimes the best tools are. Here is the one I use.

3. Callipers –

These are great when your’e creating lidded vessels like jars and teapots to accurately measure the lid to fit the rim or internal gallery. There is no need to remember measurements like would need to do with a ruler as the measurement can be screwed tight in place. Also if you’re aiming to throw multiples and you want them to be a specific width or height, go ahead and use callipers. There are several types available online at varying price points.

4. Needle tool –

MUDTOOLS Needle Tool

5. Mirror –

Any mirror will do! Put a mirror up in front of you when throwing. Angle it so that you can see your hands on the wheel, so that when throwing you have vision of the side of your pot as well as your bird’s eye view from above. This way you don’t have to move your body too much when throwing to look at the side while pulling and shaping. You can just look to your mirror.

6. Hand cream –

It’s easy to dry out your hands when throwing as a potter. The constant rinsing of hands, as well the silica and grog in clay is lightly abrasive. Glazes as well can act as an irritant on the skin, due to the dust, acids and alkalis that can be present. This can lead to ‘work-related dermatitis’ which causes painfully sore skin (so try to wear latex gloves when glazing). I use hand cream before I start working, as needed during the day and then at the end of the day. O’Keef’s Working Hands Hand Cream is my preferred choice at the moment. I find it moisturises my skin well, soaks in quickly and doesn’t feel oily.

Many thanks for reading!

By Christina Goodall

www.christinagoodallceramics.com

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Glazing might be my least favourite part of making pottery (okay, I actually hate it) and I often heard other potters say the same thing. Glazing can certainly be frustrating to say the least. You make this lovely clay vessel/object and then you fire it once, it survives and looks great so far but then you go and coat it in a glaze you think you know pretty well. Then comes that fateful day when you open the kiln and that glaze has dripped all over the kiln shelf; or cracked; or shivered or pin-holed or whatever. You internally scream because you spent hours on this and it has come out wrong. It’s so frustrating.

But I’ve come to know a few ways to minimise these frustrations. These are my 10 Go-to Glazing tools to help you out.

Glazing tongs

These are my go-to tools as I dip most of my ceramics. I have two different types, both are more suited to glazing certain shaped vessels.

www.claymansupplies.co.uk/Products/Miscellaneous_Tools/6393Sponge

www.scarva.com/en/Scarva-Tools-Glazing-Tongs—Soft-Plastic-Grip-Handle/m-1075.aspx

Essential all-rounder for any pottery! Its all about quantity not quality with this one. I have so many cheap sponges in the studio because they are useful for every stage of making pottery. In glazing, I use them to clean up any spillage and also to wipe pottery bottoms (a MUST! even if they have been waxed) as you don’t want your lovely pot to be to come out of the kiln

Studio safety is essential! Dust inhalation is no joke! So a Respirator is a good investment in every pottery studio. During glazing, glaze dries quickly on bisque work and can cause dust in the air and spilled glaze should be wiped up while still wet to deter glaze dust in the studio. Glazes are made of glass and clay dust as well as metal

Wax and Latex

Essential if you want more control on how much of the foot ring is left unglazed. This might be extra important if you have a glaze that drops (and you want to save your kiln shelves!) Use wax or latex as a resist to resist your glaze and keep your foot ring clean. I find wax is better at resisting glaze but is near on impossible to remove from the surface if you apply a bit of a wonky line or accidental drip. Latex if applied too thin can tare or ripple to allow glaze through, this easy to fix with a damp sponge by just wiping clean. Also you can easily remove by peeling off.

www.scarva.com/en/Scarva-Raw-Materials-Wax-Emulsion–Resist/m-148.aspx

www.scarva.com/en/Scarva-Special-Effects-Liquid-Latex-Emulsion/m-3055.aspx

Ladle

New favourite tool! Really helpful to cover vessels that are too tall to dip glaze. To glaze the outside, I hold the vessel with my Glazing tongs upside down, ladle the freshly whisked up glaze over the ceramic back into the bucket.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/fullaendad-soup-ladle-grey-80393089/

Funnel

Very useful for glazing the inside of vessels. Especially pots with a small neck or rim. Just place and ladle in your whisked glaze into the funnel. I fill about half the vessel, then while holding my pot slowly pouring the glaze out whilst also turning the vessel. This covers the the entire inside of your pot.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/chosigt-funnel-set-of-2-assorted-colours-70153179/

Slip trailers

These are great if you want to experiment with layering your glazes. I also use them to glaze any missed spots of fiddly pottery that can be sometimes hard to glaze like teapots.

www.bathpotters.co.uk/slip-trailer-medium-100cc

Metal kidney

A cheap and very useful tool that every potter probably already has; this can also be used at the glazing stage of your pottery making. When dipping your pottery in glaze, it may have caused runs on your pot. Allow the glaze to fully dry and become powdery. Then take your metal kidney tool and lightly scrape the raised glaze run until it is even to the rest of the surface. Then gently smooth out with your finger.

www.bathpotters.co.uk/extra-flexible-steel-clay-scraper-medium

Glaze stirrer

A easy and cheap option to stir up your glaze to disturb the heavier materials from the bottom. Mixing up all the ingredients so that all the ingredients (of different weights) are evenly dispersed throughout the glaze is very important so that you don’t use up lighter (weight) materials on the top and leave all the heavier materials at the bottom.

The only thing is, if you use glazes that sit heavier at the bottom you might want to instead go for a more industrial option of a drill and paint stirrer.

www.bathpotters.co.uk/black-plastic-glaze-stirrer

Drill and paint mixer

A more expensive tool but well worth it. This will thoroughly stir any glaze with ease in seconds. An investment would be to buy a good quality drill and then a cheap paint stirrer/paddle from any DIY store. My main piece of advice? Do not let your drill overheat.

Epsom Salts

Also known as magnesium sulfate. Can be used as an easily accessible and cheap flocculant.

The flocculent thickens the glaze, by charging particles so that they gel together and attract to each other. This helps all the components in the suspend in the water more easily. It also helps the glaze drip less easily and stay put on your bisque wares.

Use approximately 30g dissolved in 100ml of warm water.

Respirator

Studio safety is essential! Dust inhalation is no joke! So a Respirator is a good investment in every pottery studio. During glazing, glaze dries quickly on bisque work and can cause dust in the air and spilled glaze should be wiped up while still wet to deter glaze dust in the studio. Glazes are made of glass and clay dust as well as metals that can be toxic if inhaled.

www.screwfix.com/p/gvs-elipse-half-mask-respirator-p3/6922g

Let me know what your favourite tools are when it comes to glazing and maybe we can all start to enjoy glazing – maybe!

Many thanks for reading!

By Christina Goodall

www.christinagoodallceramics.com

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Specialist pottery tools can be expensive and when you need a tool for every task in pottery making, price can quickly add up. So Cake decorating tools can be a good investment when many of them can so easily be utilised to decorate clay pieces and they are often cheaper in comparison. They can also be great fun to experiment with and produce a unique decoration on your clay creations! Amazon, Craft shops and local kitchenware providers are useful places to source these new tools.

Piping Nozzles

Piping clay is one of my favourite decorating technique, there is a variety of nozzles available but I recommend to buy a full set as it is helpful to experiment with as many as you can (and you will need the piping bags). One thing to consider is the added texture should be carefully positioned onto functional pieces for hygiene reasons. However on decorative work feel free to experiment. It can take a lot of practice to produce piping that your’e happy with. Learning to apply the correct amount of pressure takes time as clay slip is a different consistency to buttercream or frosting.

The clay slip that I use is first dried, then soaked and sieved. I allow this to dry to a consistency that I’m happy with to begin piping. Drying work with clay piping on it is the most crucial step because the slip has a high water content compared to the wall of the vessel you have applied it to, it will need to be dried slowly so the water content can even out so covering with plastic is a good idea.

Cake Icing Comb

These are an alternative to pattern ribs used to shape the profile of clay when throwing on the potter’s wheel. There are sets with several designs that can be fun to experiment with and can create some great results. They tend to be a bit too tall for my use so I have cut mine down (carefully with an electric jigsaw then sanded to smooth). They can also be applied to hand building to add texture by scraping while the clay work is on a whirler. I found my set on amazon.

Different Cake Icing Combs

Chocolate and Sugar Craft Moulds

These silicone moulds are similar to plaster sprig moulds but there is a lot more variety. A disadvantage of the cake decorating moulds is that the clay relief from the mould is harder to release because silicone cannot absorb water like plaster sprig moulds. They are still useful to give a uniform repeat motif you can use in your work again and again. The Cake Decorating Company has a large selection of moulds.

I have even made my own moulds using sealant silicone from the DIY shop. You can shape and carve your design into clay and pump a layer of silicone on top, allow to dry and it’s ready to use. This allows you to create an entirely custom and unique motif to use in your work.

‘The Cake Decorating Company’ Baroque Silicone Mould

Cookie cutters

Cookie cutters are a great options to start you off. Roll out your clay to about half a centimetre on an unvarnished wood base like plywood (so the clay does not stick). Lift the clay slab off carefully each time you roll over it. Then compress the clay with a metal rib over the slab.

There is such a huge variety of cutters available, usually plastic or metal. Stainless steel is better as it’s sharper than plastic and does not rust. Maybe choose a design that you like for all year round, not just for Christmas. Bird designs are a great option and they would look good outside too in your garden. Be careful to push out the clay from a cutter that has thin sections with a paint brush so it doesn’t get stuck and break off. One design I enjoy using is this rocking horse cutter for Christmas Events from Lakeland. There are also plenty of cutter you can find online, just pick your favourite and start rolling out those slabs!

‘Lakeland’ Rocking Horse Cookie Cutter

Meri Meri have some gorgeous trendy designs like these Cactus cutters to create single hanging decorations or even bunting. Once cut out, make sure to cut a hole at the top to hang. Decorate as desired, for example you can could experiment with textures, stains, underglaze and slips.

‘Meri Meri’ Cactus Cookie Cutters

Cake Whirlers

Whirlers are essential for hand-building and useful when decorating clay pieces. It is useful to centre the work like on a potter’s wheel and then you can turn the clay work to decorate in a fluid movement. Cake turntables to ice and decorate cakes are a great cheaper alternative to potter’s whirlers. Plastic Cake turntables tend to range from £10 -£20 where as metal potters whirlers/banding wheels range £50 – £100+

Hobbycraft and Lakeland both have options for sale.

Cake Decorating Whirler

Many thanks for reading my first EVER blog post!

By Christina Goodall

www.christinagoodallceramics.com

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