Juiced!

The electric kiln is loaded and waiting on a few bowls to dry enough to fire. The kiln is a Cress E27 which has about 7 cubic feet of space. Therefore, it takes roughly about 3 loads of bisque firings to fill my gas kiln. Plus or minus a bowl or two.

I threw some "juicers" yesterday and they dried enough to trim today. I got the idea for these from Elizabeth Priddy. She is a North Carolina potter who lives and works in Beaufort on the coast. She had a "how to" on her web site a couple of years ago that I adapted. She has put this along with other "how to" projects on a DVD which she sells. She also has one on doing brush painting that looks interesting. Take a look.

The thing she didn't explain was how to trim them once they were thrown. The juicing cone makes working on them difficult. The first ones I did, I just carved off the extra clay with a fettling knife freehand. It worked, but I then thought up this system were I use a tin can, a coil of clay and my griffin grip.


The can is put in the griffin grip and the top edge is softened with the coil of clay.


There is a lot of extra clay around the bottom of the cone that needs to be removed. Below is the before.


And a couple of minutes later, here is the after.


The trim tool is one of Philip Poburka's Tungsten Carbide Cutters. I have had it about 3 years now and I still cut myself on it yesterday. Ouch! But it is a joy to use once you get used to it.