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Peggy-potter makes the hand-crafted mugs. Carla-coffee-drinker, needs a mug. This apparent perfect alignment goes off the rails when Carla compares Peggy's $50 price with premium imported mugs costing $5 (shown here). Especially when the imports emulate Peggy's techniques flawlessly while offering better durability and strength!
Peggy has to choose between hyping "kiln drops" on social or cutting costs. DIY techniques and supplies are a first option. Also mold-making and slip casting, even mixing her own casting slips. Mixing her own glazes, underglazes and engobes is the next step. Or learning to use less expensive bodies (e.g. with engobes).
Going DIY is not a big equipment investment. A plaster table, scale, mixing and batching table and a propeller mixer are the most important. And keeping good records (e.g. an account at insight-live.com). Following manufacturers on Instagram to see their glazing and forming techniques can help. Build throwing and drying skills by making hundreds of the same item. Consider: What you do affects other potters, prices cannot keep rising, or there will be no market.

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These porcelain mugs are sold at many tourist shops on the Alaskan cruise circuit. Made in China, of course. But their quality is astounding. It seems that almost anything a potter can do can now be done in industry. And, these teach them multiple lessons - great skill in the use of decals (even inside), meeting different glazes at the rims, evenness of application, layering, the use of wax resist, etc. They likely have a glossy and matte base glaze and add stains (to get the black, blue, red, white, green). Notice they have an iron red (lower right) that is stable enough not to run and host an even more fluid melt second layer. They also have a stony yet functional matte white (bottom left). And they are using encapsulated stains to get that bright red (even on food surfaces). In the words of a reader: “It seems industry has adopted a parasitic role vis-a-vis the creative types, put up with it, and try to be better at marketing”.
You can make dipping glaze versions of all of these:
Black glossy: G3914A and G2926BL
Black matte: G2934BL
Iron Red: G3948A
White stoney matte: G2934Y2
Glossy colors: Add stains to G2926B
Matte colors: Add stains to G2934

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This is an example of an angle iron utility table being made into a plaster table. The cardboard sides extend upward to make the slab thicker and create a buffer gap to prevent the expanding and setting plaster from pressing outward on the frame. 150 lbs plaster (92 lbs water) was poured into the plastic-lined space (the bottom cardboard sections were supported from below). In a dry enough climate, this table could make enough clay to support slurry-to-plastic production for a potter (a thicker slab and a fan would enable even more capacity). The slurry-up process is better than a pugmill for small operations. It's much cheaper and is an easier way to utilize scrap material and weigh out custom recipes. The clay quality and de-airing is better (without hard chunks and contamination common to pugmilling). The procedure generates much less dust and the tank is easily cleaned. Slurries are easily sieved, especially if you have a sieve shaker.

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Consider the advantages of making your own clay bodies using a propeller mixer and plaster table.
-Independence: You control product availability, quality and consistency.
-Flexibility: You control the recipe (with our help if needed). Fine-tune and adjust it over time to fit your needs and compensate for variations in material properties and supply.
-Special-purpose clay bodies are possible, ones that ceramic suppliers do not or cannot make.
-The slurry up process achieves better mixing and deairing than any pugmill. No aging needed.
-A mixer and plaster table are useful for so many other things in a pottery studio.
-Achieving the right stiffness is an integral part of the process.
-Recycling scrap, by slaking, fits the process.
-Local native clays: Slurries enable the use of a magnet to remove iron, a sieve to remove particulates and a settling process to remove soluble salts.
-Cleanup is easy so many kinds of clay can be made without cross contamination.
-It is rewarding - you will own the whole process, the bragging rights alone make it worthwhile for me!
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Where do I start in understanding glazes?
Break your addiction to online recipes that don't work or bottled expensive glazes that you could DIY. Learn why glazes fire as they do. Why each material is used. How to create perfect dipping and brushing properties. Even some chemistry. |
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