Welcome to Ceramics Tips

sandpaper attached to a table top

A piece of sandpaper attached to a table top is an effective aid in leveling the bottoms of greenware pieces.

Handy glaze pourer

Handy Glaze Pourer: The green straight handled cups that come with dry
detergent can have the
handle bent straight down by heating over a flame. They then will hang over
the edge of your glaze
bucket, and they pour a nice small stream from the corners of the cup.

Make throwing plaster bats

Make throwing plaster bats easily with an old cake spring form. After the plaster has been poutred and hardened, it will pop out easily from the mold. No more messy rings, no more messy clay sausages! Just make sure you do it on a level surface

Mixing glazes

Use a toilet bowl brush or a wire whisk for mixing glazes. Or even a toilet plunger with holes cut in the rubber

An old eyedropper

An old eyedropper can be used for a variety of decoration techniques. It also serves as a good measure for mixing underglaze and base glazes for on glaze painting.

Slab roller

Use scrap pieces of vinyl flooring beneath your canvas when using a slab roller. This makes it easier to run the slab through without distortion or jamming (for slab rollers where the roller is stationary and the clay moves.) But for any slabroller or even hand rolling, it also makes it easy to move the slab to another work surface after without stretching it.

Throwing bats

Bats: These are used for throwing large based ware such as plates and platters, that are very awkward to remove from the wheelhead, as they have a tendency to collapse.
Bats are made with 6 gauge marine ply, in varying sizes. I find 20cm 30cm and 40cm are the most useful sizes. Draw your circle onto the timber, and use a jigsaw to cut out the shape. Sand till smooth on the edges.
These too should last your lifetime.

Rolling pins

For large items like rolling pins, and/or seldom used items, I use one of those plastic rolling carts with several drawers (again, Target or Wal-Mart). The ones with shallow drawers are better than the ones with deep drawers.

Pin Tool

Lose your Pin Tool?

Glue a block of foam to the side of your wheel or another handy place, and poke the pin tools into the foam for storage.

To sharpen tools

To sharpen tools, you shouldn´t use power tools because the heat will damage the hardened steel. You can use a commercial sharpening tool, such as one used to sharpen knives. Or make your own from cone 10 porcelain rods.

A lace tool

A lace tool is designed to help you in the application of slip-soaked lace to greenware, but can be used for many other things. Decorating and fine feature work are just a few examples.

Plastic ribs

How can I make a rib?
Old credit cards can be used for ribs. You can cut patterns in them to make countoured edges. You can also cut patterns in them to use for making stripes on slabs.

a turntable

If you do not have a turntable, you can position your piece on a paper plate and place it on a glazed surface or even a slick table-top. Turn it as you need to and then remove it when done.

glaze applicators

Does anyone shine their shoes anymore? If so, empty shoe polish bottles (with the sponge tops) make great applicators for stain or oxide solutions. You can make squares and thick lines easily.

Wareboard

Wareboards: These are invaluable for transporting, drying and storing ware.
Best made from Marine ply 4 ply is enough, 1m x 50c, is a good size. Cut out with jigsaw.
Cut 40cm long x 4cm dowl in half and nail 10cm in from either side (this gives a fingerhold and is easy to slip into frames (If you´ve been ingenious
enough to build them )

Stamps

To make stamps for applying underglazes, cut a pattern out of an old mouse pad. Glue it onto a block of wood or wood dowel if desired. Coat the foam side with underglaze and stamp away.

Glaze stirrers

What can I use for a stirring stick?
Instead of wood stirring sticks for stirring glazes, cut lengths of PVC pipe. They can stay in the glaze indefinitely and won´t rot

General

Losing tools in general?

1. I have found the best way to store large tools is to throw my own pot for them. You can make it just the right size for whatever needs storing, and have your handiwork around all the time! Platters are useful for laying out a bunch of tools in a row......

Read this entire article ´Losing/Storing tools´ in the Articles section of this site
Or go to:
http://www.ceramics-tips.com/RscArticleV.asp?id=387

Chamois

Lose your Chamois in your bucket of throwing water?

Stick a corner into an empty film canister, close the lid, and it will float. Or tie the chamois to a 1” fishing bobber.