Hi, I am a novice potter who is setting up a studio in my home. I am going to use a cart to dry and shift pots in my studio. My question is: does it matter what kind of material the shelves are made from? Plywood, particle board, or metal shelves? thanks for your help, thepubguy
wood materials tend to help the pot bottom dry some, sucking out water a bit. metal shelves don't do this. ~ they rust too which might leave stains.
particle board is heavy. generally i like it for bats, but for shelving it's heavy to move & slowly warps a lot.
plywood is great for shelving. doesn't warp much.
meanwhile, if you can get metal shelves cheap, go for it!
i frequently use 8x8 plywood boards to put finished pots on & move them around via these square boards.
see ya
steve
During my apprenticeship, at my teacher's workshop, we used solid wood planks for wet ware. After leather hard, we put the work on plywood wareboards. We also always picked out a solid board to put work on after glazing, before cleaning the feet. The Japanese plywood doesn't like to get soaked. Maybe marine plywood would be better?
I use solid pine boards. Sometimes they warp, but they tend to go back to shape after cleaning and drying.
-- Lee In Mashiko, Japan
My google Notebooks:
I use imitation roof slates most of the time. These are made using a hard slightly absorbent material which is obviously unaffected by damp. Where I live building regulations insist on Slate or an imitation material for use on the roofs of Georgian buildings, so supply is not a problem! For fast drying I use Vermiculite based fire resistant board, so I can throw a load of mugs, and the foot dries at the same speed as the rim. This means that I can throw them and handle them same day! I also use the same material for drying out slops; safer than a plaster slab because it doesn't matter if little bits of it get in the clay. Also it doesn't grow things on the underside like plaster. Also you can put it out to dry when not in use, releasing bench space. Important if like me you have a small workshop!
Steve Bath UK
In article , thepubguy writes
Anything that doesn't warp, which wood tends to do.
s97
I am lucky to have a very practical hubby.
He adapted a shelf-system for me and made me a trolly with mostly plywood shelves, but with two drying-shelves made with a rectangle frame with one post across the middle widthwise - and attached wire mesh to them, so that air gets to both the top and the bottom of the pieces. Works great!
As I said, the rest of the shelves are made of plywood. The shelf-system is that the holders have two hooks at the back, and there is then a post (all of this metal) with corresponding holes in it, so that I can change the distances between the shelves.
Only bummer with this trolly is that it almost as tall as the doorways, and I learned the hard way, that putting tall pieces on the top shelf is NOT a good idea! :-(
Also, the wheels are a bit too hard, so that it jiggles a lot being rolled over the tile floors in the basement.
Marianne
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