Getting started again

I've been slacking since Christmas, production-wise. Not that I haven't done anything--we took the end-of-year inventory, packed and shipped nine Christmas boxes and a special order, and I spent the better part of a week on the computer, designing poster and postcards for OPA's Ceramic Showcase. But I also read a bunch of books, caught up on a couple of movies we'd missed in the holiday crunch (Thor: Ragnarok and The Last Jedi), spent some time in the kitchen cooking slow food instead of throwing together 30-minute meals.

Yesterday, I finally went back into the studio. 

I actually started the night before, setting out some clay to stiffen up. My clay comes from the manufacturer too soft to make anything but plates; sometimes it's even too squishy for that. Fortunately, I've found a solution.

Overnights in Oregon are damp, even in summer. Damp enough that I can debag 25 lb. blocks of clay, cut them in quarters vertically and leave them uncovered overnight in a cold studio to firm up to a nice throwing consistency by morning. I started two bags on Sunday, planning to throw painted and tall mugs Monday morning. Start gradually, with the easy stuff.

Only it wasn't a cold studio.

I'd been packing boxes to ship, and forgot I left the space heater on. Not far--a quarter turn, probably added about 10 degrees to the temperature--but enough that the clay was much stiffer than I expected Monday morning. Enough so that throwing mugs would be a struggle. Which I really didn't need, just getting started again.

Fortunately, there are somethings that need stiffer clay. Big things. Eight-pound serving bowls, six-pound cookie jars. Both of which I need. So, instead of starting with the easiest pots, I got to start with the hardest. 

It can only get easier from here, right?

Nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana...

Bat pins!

Was getting ready to (finally) make mugs this morning when I took a close look at the head of my wheel and saw something surprising: the bat pins were nearly worn away.

I didn't even know this was possible. Bat pins are supposed to be forever, sturdy little bolt heads that hold your throwing bats in place. If anything is supposed to wear out, it's the holes in the bats themselves, particularly the masonite ones. They're always getting loose and wobbly; I've started sticking a sheet of old t-shirt fabric on the wheel head to keep the bats from sliding back and forth.

Well, it turns out the bats weren't entirely at fault. Or maybe they were--the back-and-forth friction, along with the abrasive qualities of the clay, seem to have worn a good sixteenth-inch or more off the pins all the way around, on one pin, all the way to the hollow center of the head. I had to take off the wing nuts, lever out the pins with a vise-grips, and take a set, along with a representative throwing bat, down to the nearest hardware store. (I could have gone to the ceramics supply instead, but only if I wanted to pay four times the price.)

I should have taken a flashlight. Socket-headed machine screws were in the back-most layer of a three-deep sliding hardware thingy. (You know the kind, like sliding closet doors covered with tiny, badly labeled drawers full of every screw and fastener except the one you need right now.)

I finally found what I needed, 3/4 inch pins with a 1/4 inch head. Cost me 86¢ for two. And the best part--almost making up for a lost morning's throwing--is that my bats don't wobble anymore.