Setting up a home studio

I'm about to start the process of having my basement finished. I recently got a wheel so I'm excited that we'll be including a small pottery studio in this project. The room will be about 9 x 16 feet.

I would greatly appreciate any advice on the following:

- Flooring. I'm thinking vinyl/laminate flooring might be the most durable and easy to clean.

- Lighting. I've heard fluorescent lighting is good, any other ideas?

- Sink. Is a laundry/utility sink the way to go? I've been using an existing utility sink, but it's very low and I tend to have an aching back after cleaning my tools, etc. I'm wondering if I can drop a utility sink into a cabinet with more height. (I already have some cabinets I plan to use in the room.)

I'm planning to set the room up with as many shelving units as possible, some counter space for wedging, and ability to install an exhaust fan if I do get a kiln in the future. I have ordered Alistair Young's book - How to Set Up a Pottery Workshop. I'm hoping that will include some recommendations.

Any other helpful tips?

Thanks!

P.S. I hope this isn't a repeat question. I was surprised not to find much on this topic already.

Reply to
kdame
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As far as your floor is concerned, if your not using a kick wheel and its easily moveable i would get some painters plastic to lay down under the space where the wheel will go or around the entire workspace. Even with some nice laminate flooring, cleaning the dust and debris will be a huge pain, unless there is a drain pipe or something in the floor where u can pressure wash or mop the entire floor and easily get rid of the excess water so you dont have to change water buckets every couple passes. With the plastic you can easily roll it up and dispose of it and lay a new one down every so often.

For the sink i would get a laundry style sink thats pretty decent size. They sell parts that would make this an awesome sink to have. Get a tube style drain for the sink that actually sticks upwards and is a couple inches below the sink top, this makes it so that clay and debris falls to the bottom of the sink and only the water goes down the tube. Another helpful think is to have a open pipe where it emptys. I mean the pipes under the sink, where the pipe stops and u can see the water come out, and under that open part have a funnel pipe with a adequate screen in it so you can make sure clay doesnt go back into the pipes if the top tube missed it. I know this is a little extreme, but dont wanna take a chance and clog the pipes with clay and debris. Oh and you can put a sink in a cabinet if you want to, will just have to cut the cabinet accordingly so the pipe work and sink will fit into it.

Personally I'm a college student majoring in ceramics, and plan to open my own studio and gallery this summer. The studio will be in the basement of a house i inherited These are two of my plans for the space.

Hope I helped a little bit or atleast inspired new ideas and good luck!

Reply to
jwinds

We are within two weeks of completing our own basement and a pottery room was set aside for wife in that project. I'll add what we've learned so far.

Is your existing basement floor dirt or concrete? We decided to keep the concrete in the area where the wheel will be, and we used a product called DriCore

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to create a foot-friendly surface around the table were one stands a lot. This seems to be working quite well. The concrete is durable and we're leaning towards painting it with one of the flooring paints like I used in my woodshop to make cleanup even easier.> - Lighting. I've heard fluorescent lighting is good, any other ideas? We're using 4' shoplights, but the the trick is to get full spectrum bulbs. They cost a bit more, but they don't give the blueish greenish tint to things that the standard fluorescents do. In her room with a 12' x 14' space we installed six two-bulb fixtures. The effect is a bit dazzling at first! :-)

You certainly could. If there is clearance within the cabinet, there should be no problem mounting any suspended sink unit onto the countertop material. One idea might be to look for one of those kitchen sinks that has one shallow basin and another deep basin side by side. Then you could have the best of both worlds.

If you're running your sink directly into a sewer or septic system, then consider the Gleco Trap to keep the gunk out of the lines. I can't find a web page for Gleco, but here is a commercial supplier that offers it:

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P.S. I hope this isn't a repeat question. I was surprised not to> find much on this topic already. Check out the ClayArt archives
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for a lot more discussion. Maybe even consider joining if you have not already; although be warned, there is a *lot* of traffic! Potters like to talk ... :-)

Reply to
Charles Jones

i painted my concrete floor with cement paint. it cleans easy & looks more uniform.

i have to add a pitch for my old lighting company. i used to work for Lights of America, the 1st people to make the shop lights & the twister bulbs. (they are still a USA company).

they have a line of twister bulbs that put out extremely bright color white (very full spectrum) light. they seem to be the only ones who also sell higher watt bulbs then what is usually available. they sell via wall mart, costco, home depot.

they have a 65 watt bulb, and even a light fixture assy for around $20 to $30. it puts out the light of a 400 watt bulb! photography buffs found out this bulb matches professional bulbs selling for over $100. soon they will have an

85 watt bulb and 100 watt energy bulbs. these are BRIGHT bulbs! equivalent to up to 1000 (thousand) watts of trqaditional bulb light.

one or two of them in your work area and you'll have some decent light!

see ya

steve

steve graber

Reply to
Slgraber

In the shop where I used to work they tried full-spectrum fluorescents. The shop was in a basement level, so no windows for other source of light. When you first walked into the room, it was indeed dazzling. I got a strong sensation of "sunrise"... but it lasted all day long! However, whether this is right for you or not seems to be a very personal thing. To me it was uncomfortable and seemed to produce more annoying glare than the regular fluorescents. Of the other two guys who shared the shop, one loved it (the one who requested it in the first place) and the other was ambivalent. I took to wearing a baseball cap, which seemed to help but felt silly. Eventually the guy who wanted them decided he'd had enough and out they came.

Having said all that, one of the main virtues of these lamps was color rendition. We were doing electronics, having to read tiny color code lines on resistors. The bodies of one type of resistor were blue, and a red band looked nearly identical to a brown band under regular fluorescents, but under the daylight balanced you could tell them apart instantly. So there may be some operations where color rendition will make a difference to your work.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the only colors that matter are the ones that come out of the glaze firing, which of course are never even remotely the way they look when you apply them in the first place. Not much hope for a lamp to change that situation!

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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Reply to
Bob Masta

A very cheap alternative to using a sink trap is to use a 5 gallon bucket for cleaning tools and dump that outside as needed. Don't wash up in your sink which will at some point get clogged with clay. I have a faucet to fill up the bucket but no sink in my cellar where I work.

Reply to
btpanek09

A good piece of kit to make is a sludge trap made from a large plastic storage box with a bucket sitting inside it under the sink outlet. You put a plastic pipe though the side of the box, with a right angle bend so that the end faces upwards, about 2 inches BELOW the edge of the bucket. Seal where it goes through the box very thoroughly. The principle is that heavy crud get caught in the bucket, and lighter stuff flows over the edge and settles out in the box. The almost clean water then spills over into the pipe and thence into the drain. The bucket can be lifted out and decanted, and the rest shovelled out of the box. This is a very cheap piece of do-it-yourself kit. If you want a drawing email me but remember to remove the bit in my address.

Steve Bath UK

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Reply to
Steve Mills

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