More Terms
Sep. 4th, 2014 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrPulling handles. Forming handles from a pre-shaped piece of clay either attached to the pot or held in one hand. Dip hand in water, then stroke downward on handle with thumb and forefinger. Gentle pressure is the key, or you'll pinch through the clay have to start over. Motion is not unlike milking a cow by hand.
Slip. Clay liquefied to the consistency of pudding. You can make some by dissolving dry clay into water and mixing; it also happens naturally while throwing pots as you add water and pressure to the clay. I fill a little container with slip scraped off my hands onto the edge of my throwing bucket. This is the perfect ceramic glue; it's sticky, it dries fast, and leaves only clay behind.
Score and slip. Scratching the surface of a leather-hard pot with a needle or serrated rib and working some slip into the spot. Used to help attachments like handles stay on.
Leather-hard. Stupidest term in the ceramic lexicon. It's a stage midway between wet/sticky and bone dry. Further qualified by "soft" or "hard" leather-hard. It really means your clay is the consistency of a Hershey bar. You can cut it with a sharp tool, maybe deform it a little, paddle it, but it's not sticky, and it holds its shape when you handle it. This is when to trim a foot, attach a handle, carve a pattern, smooth off fingerprints.
Trimming. Also called turning. Flipping your pot over and centering it on the wheel, holding it in place with clay wads (or a Giffin grip), then cutting away clay with a sharp tool with the wheel turning, to form a raised, ring-shaped foot.
Slip. Clay liquefied to the consistency of pudding. You can make some by dissolving dry clay into water and mixing; it also happens naturally while throwing pots as you add water and pressure to the clay. I fill a little container with slip scraped off my hands onto the edge of my throwing bucket. This is the perfect ceramic glue; it's sticky, it dries fast, and leaves only clay behind.
Score and slip. Scratching the surface of a leather-hard pot with a needle or serrated rib and working some slip into the spot. Used to help attachments like handles stay on.
Leather-hard. Stupidest term in the ceramic lexicon. It's a stage midway between wet/sticky and bone dry. Further qualified by "soft" or "hard" leather-hard. It really means your clay is the consistency of a Hershey bar. You can cut it with a sharp tool, maybe deform it a little, paddle it, but it's not sticky, and it holds its shape when you handle it. This is when to trim a foot, attach a handle, carve a pattern, smooth off fingerprints.
Trimming. Also called turning. Flipping your pot over and centering it on the wheel, holding it in place with clay wads (or a Giffin grip), then cutting away clay with a sharp tool with the wheel turning, to form a raised, ring-shaped foot.