Biggest blunders?

Mine was having a blackboard with chalk in my workshop to make notes about orders while we still had very young children. They had a chalk fight while I was in a different part of the building, and a lot of chalk wound up in the reclaim bin, which was open, and was pugged in with the new batch of clay. I found out about it when bits started blowing out of the sides, bottoms, etc. of my pots. I had to bury half a ton (500Kgs) of contaminated clay and start again. This was at a time when we hadn't long been in business so money was short. Needless to say blackboards, chalk, AND plaster are not allowed within

Steve Paranoid, in Bath UK

In article , Bubbles writes

Oh my gosh!!! I can't think of any thing like that. I made all the normal mistakes of the beginner like lifting a dry green bowl by the rim (left holding rim only) making HEAVY pots. One time I made a composite pot, very complicated, upside down bowl, figures holding up another bowl, then underglazed it, had dreams of a masterpiece :o) Then lifting it into the kiln bumped into the kiln shelf and the whole thing slowly fell apart in my hands. I jumped up and down on it. Oh well just wonder what my next big mistake will be. Annemarie

While cleaning up the community studio, someone put a small bisqued pot into the pug mill. Oops. We had to throw about 800lbs of recycled clay and recovered about 30 dime sized pieces of bisquware. We reconstructed the small pot as best we could and put it on display as a warning of what not to do...

it has to be adding granite rocks to the kiln load to fill up all the open areas for a glaze fire. you know how well a full kiln fires and all. i ran out of pieces, and kiln posts.

rocks don't melt, right?

....they melt.....

see ya

steve

steve graber

Two stories

1. I had packed my glaze kiln and put the top shelf in place however I had not measured very well and the post wasn't quite as tall as one of the pots I put in...which I didn't figure out until I unloaded and the top of the pot was glazed to the underside of the shelf. Lesson: Make sure the posts are tall enough for the pots.

1. I had already started a bisque fire and the kiln had been on for at least two hours, I just wanted to add that last pot I had made. The pot was rather dry, certainly not wet. I opened the kiln up and added this new addition. About 15 minutes later I heard a loud poof...I went down and the new addition had burst into a hundred pieces. Lesson: Don't add pieces to a hot kiln.

Years ago, while taking care of the studio at Bowie State University, i was cleaning up the large table with buckets of glaze. What i didn't realize at the time was, the table wasn't a table, it was a huge heavy tabletop resting on two oildrums. I was pushing buckets from one side to the other in order to wipe the surface underneath, when suddenly the load was too heavy in the front and the entire tablatop with about 12 large buckets tipped over and crashed to the floor. (I was lucky i didn't stand in front of it and got hit by the tabletop!) The mess was beyond description!

Monika

Many raku clays melt below cone 10, and you'd be surprised how many pieces would end up on the wrong rack. That made a big enough mess that the studio now uses the same clay base for raku.

Once a paraplexic asked me to fire some sculptures for him, from his own clay. He told me it was porcelain, and although I had misgivings, I fired it in my stoneware kiln. It was some lowfire kind of porcelain, for every shelf I put the sculptures on, it congealed into the shelf. I was out a few shelves--he was upset that I'd destroyed his sculptures. I'm very leary of firing other people's work as a result. Brad Sondahl

-- For original art, music, pottery, and literature, visit my homepage

To reply to me directly, don't forget to take out the "garbage" from my address.

My blunder was when the tutor left me to choose a glaze and get on with it for the first time. Unknowingly and just going by the pretty colour, I chose a glaze that should only be sponged on, or put on pieces that are horizontal. After carefully and meticulously dipping, and then cleaning the bottom prior to going on the firing shelf, another tutor spotted me just in time. When finding out the glaze and telling me about it, the only way to salvage the piece was to wear a mask and gently scrape it down as best as possible. He told me I had put it on so thick it would have stuck to the shelf and caused all sorts of problems. After the piece was fired it looked awful, exactly what I had done to it, all scratchy, although my brother in law reckoned it was the "rustic" look!

That's a bit better than what happened to one of my fellow students. She was stressing around trying to get a vase finished, and there was some kind of miscommunication between her and the teacher as to the number of the glaze. Both the right and the wrong glazes were white before firing, so our teacher didn't notice that the "wrong" glaze had been used and thus didn't sponge off high enough up on the vase.

Final result, one ruined vase, one ruined oven shelf. The vase was glazed onto the shelf all the way around.

Marianne

I blew up a very nice pot by firing it with the lid on...

Linda D in TX

Really? We always fire with the lid on in the school where I do my pottery. Of course we wax all the rims very thoroughly, and have had some sticking, but not blowups. Firing with the lid on assures a better fitting lid, and better match of glaze.

Deb R.

I always fire pots, that have a lid, with the lid on, making sure there is absolutely no glaze between the lid and the pot! Occasionally they stick a bit, but that can usually be solved with a piece of wood and a hammer, tapping gently. Otherwise, especially with large lids, you don't get a good fit, because everythings warps a little.

Monika

I have never known anyone to fire a pot without the lid on (to keep the pot and lid from warping out of fit). Perhaps the piece was fired to fast and or their was still moisture in the pot....

lids on, lids off, I don't know. I once fired a teapot, very happy with it I was. Glazed on the inside, glazed halfway down on the outside, wood fired, came out of the kiln looking lovely. one small problem......... all the holes I'd spent time drilling in the body before fixing the spout, all glazed up! I inserted a screwdriver down the spout and tapped gently a few times. It split neatly down the middle!

all the best, Alistair.

Oh wow, Alistair! That's about the worst thing I can imagine. So close to the finish and then BANG!

Did you fire with the lid on or not? :-)

Marianne

The teapot story reminded me of a blunder of mine. I made a teapot for a friend's wedding----and what a lovely teapot it was---the handle was great, the spout fantastic-----the problem??? I forgot to make holes for the tea to come out. Silly me.

You couldn't use a Dremmel to drill some from the inside?

Marianne

But such a pretty flower pot?....