Waxing Bowls Feet #functionalpottery

Waxing pots isn’t a job I look forward to. It’s repetitive, almost mindless work, ‘almost’ as whilst being a straightforward operation, it’s also easy to make mistakes, mainly in the way of dripping wax on an unwanted portion of the bowl, or inside the foot, hell.

Thankfully there are some relatively easy ways to fix this if it does happen, as obviously wax in an unwanted spot will mean the glaze won’t cover the pot entirely, so here’s how I get rid of it.

The first and easiest method is to simply bisque fire the pot again, doing it this way will make it as good as new, but obviously you need the pots to fill a kiln and the time/energy needed to fire it to 1000ºC. Another method is to simply scrape the wax off and then sand the area, you don’t need to remove much material as the wax doesn’t sink far into the clay. Easy, dusty but it leaves you with a relatively neat correction. Lastly, you can take a heat gun or a gas torch and just blast the area with the unwanted wax. It melts off and evaporates, occasionally leaving a scorched mark, but in that case, I give the vessel a quick wash and lightly sand away the singed clay.

I use all three methods depending on the severity of the poorly placed wax.

#pottery #wax #waxing #tableware #ceramics #clay

[hongxian-qcbl]

The arm strength must be crazy to carry those stacked bowls maintaining the balance.

[corky]

The stacking at the very end was so precarious! I definitely held my breath 😰

[penguinista]

I wax after pouring glaze on the inside. Then dip the outside and then the rim. The waxed foot never touches the ground until it sits on the kiln shelf, as it is upside down on slices of wood for airflow

[landonkryger]

Probably a stupid question, could you wax the shelf instead? I'm sure it'd take way more wax, but would that technically work?

[Cookies__]

what kind of wax do you use? it always seems so liquid in your videos, and I'm only really familiar with candle wax, not the kind which is used in pottery

edit: love the tips/methods you leave in the description

[landonkryger]

Probably a stupid question, could you wax the shelf instead? I'm sure it'd take way more wax, but would that technically work?

[TheHadMatters]

I wonder. Do ceramicists and potters have expanded knowledge about avoiding hand muscle/nerve damage when using them?

Whenever I stir a thick dough with a fork or whisk, and often when I knead a dough, I get immense pain, especially towards the thumb-side palm of my hand.

Ostensibly, doing it more regularly, and not overdoing the pressure when I haven't done it in a while, would both help make sure I have more muscle stability to work with, and that I don't overexert the hand with too much work at once. But sometimes the work just needs to get done.

Would you have any advice about what I could do and how I might change my technique to avert this result?

[paulabefumo]

Florian, how do you handle grog in clay? I used a clay with 7% grog, that was supposed to be fine particles. I now have pieces of grog embedded under my skin.

Does that happen to you? Thanks, and it's raining here. I hope you have some sun.

[baldmenwin]

O verly
C ontrolling
D esire
(GETS STUFF DONE) 😮

[beaualoevv]

ikea pots & vessels better and cheaper