'Stache tea
Jul. 3rd, 2015 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrGot another person looking for a mustache cup last Saturday. For a long time, I didn't know what that meant--I assumed it was one of those 70's mugs with the beady eyes, beaky nose and enormous mustache on the side.
Nope, wrong. Apparently it's a sippy cup for grown ups, to keep their facial foliage free of coffee. Isn't mustache wax water repellant?
This is the sort of thing that would be easy if I were slip casting. Take my regular mug mold, make an extra plaster section that blocks off half of the top, so slip accumulates there as well as the sides and bottom of the mold, making the mustache "cradle." The whole thing is formed at one time, dries and shrinks together.
I don't do slip casting. With wheel-thrown mugs, I'd have to wait until the mug's leather-hard, then add a slab to the inside of the mouth blocking off half the mug. If the moisture content of mug and slab aren't perfectly matched, the mug will warp, crack, separate inside the rim or split down the side. For an object I get maybe one request every two or three years for, this is a huge amount of work and an unacceptable failure rate.
Explaining this does no good, of course. Just makes me part of the great anti-mustache conspiracy. (Has she seen my upper lip?)
Her final riposte is, "Well, if you'd had one, I'd have totally bought it."
To which my unspoken reply is, In the alternate universe where I make them, you'd have totally wanted a different pattern.
Nope, wrong. Apparently it's a sippy cup for grown ups, to keep their facial foliage free of coffee. Isn't mustache wax water repellant?
This is the sort of thing that would be easy if I were slip casting. Take my regular mug mold, make an extra plaster section that blocks off half of the top, so slip accumulates there as well as the sides and bottom of the mold, making the mustache "cradle." The whole thing is formed at one time, dries and shrinks together.
I don't do slip casting. With wheel-thrown mugs, I'd have to wait until the mug's leather-hard, then add a slab to the inside of the mouth blocking off half the mug. If the moisture content of mug and slab aren't perfectly matched, the mug will warp, crack, separate inside the rim or split down the side. For an object I get maybe one request every two or three years for, this is a huge amount of work and an unacceptable failure rate.
Explaining this does no good, of course. Just makes me part of the great anti-mustache conspiracy. (Has she seen my upper lip?)
Her final riposte is, "Well, if you'd had one, I'd have totally bought it."
To which my unspoken reply is, In the alternate universe where I make them, you'd have totally wanted a different pattern.