We buy all our clay in in 12.5 kg sealed plastic bags from a specialist supplier. We use a fine grained white stoneware clay that fires a pale grey in reduction and is good for colours. We also use a flecked stoneware for throwing that has a little more grog and the flecking comes through in the fired product. We occasionally use some porcelain and some raku for special pots and the childrens work.

Similarly we buy all our glaze materials in as the basic raw materials. Base ingredients such as quartz and china clay are bought in 25kg bags, colourants such as tin and iron oxide are bought by the two or five kilo's. Cobalt is so expensive (and powerful) it is only bought 100g at a time. We have a wide range of raw materials and we are frequently experimenting with different base glazes and colourants; most kilns have some test pieces in (see below).

We both have electric wheels. Eveline uses a Shimpo cone wheel bought in Holland and raised up on a wooden frame. Tom uses a home made wheel (made to suit his leg length) that uses a mechanism where the motor and a small pulley slide in and out over a 30 inch wide disc on the bottom of the wheel head shaft to get a range of speeds. Although the range of speeds is not so large as on the Shimpo the large splash tray allows large platters to be thrown on bats up to 16" diameter. All work is thrown on bats. Small work is thrown on square bats made of 'Master Board' and held on the wheel head by a pad of soft clay. Large work is thrown on marine plywood bats held on either by a pad of soft clay or a split pin lug located in the side of the wheel head.

Click here for a photographic series on pot throwing

The thrown pots are dried slowly on master board bats and turned over to ensure they harden evenly. Once they are leather hard they are returned to the wheel where they are turned to refine and define the outer shape.

Click here for a photographic series on pot turning

Once totally dry the pots are biscuit fired to 1000'C. We use a small light weight kiln for all firings. It was made to Ray Scott's design with a metal frame and outer shell and ceramic fibre and light-weight brick interior. The kiln is gas fired with two burners at the bottom and the back. The packed kiln is 'smoked' for a couple of hours to ensure all moisture has been driven out and then fired to the top temperature over about 7-8 hours. The kiln is now about ten years old and has done several hundred firings. Although the lid, burner ports, spy hole etc. are showing their age is still fires well and gives a very even glaze firing.

After biscuit firing all work is glazed. We make glazes up in 5kg batches as required and store them in a range of large buckets, drums and dustbins. I have recently built a ball mill (see right) to process the glazes. Each drum takes about 4 pints of glaze and several kilo's of small pottery balls. Milling for about one hour thoroughly mixes the glaze and disperses all the colourants. Milling for four hours makes the glaze particles much smaller and milled celedons are much clearer and brighter when fired with fewer micro-air bubbles within the glaze. The yellow box in the right photo is an automatic siever which makes quick work of any glazes that need sieving.

Eveline's pots are generally glazed by dipping and pouring. The inside is generally glazed with a white glaze that is poured into the pot, swirled round for a few seconds and then poured out again. The pot is then left to dry over-night and is then dipped in a second glaze to cover the outside of the pot.

Tom's celedon glazed pots are all decorated. A very thick base glaze is allowed to dry and decoration is applied over the top. A cobalt rich pigment is applied with a range of brush strokes and dots in kaki, blue, red and yellow applied with a slip trailer.

Click here for a photographic series on pot decoration

The glazed pots are fired again in the gas kiln. This time the kiln is fired to about 1300'C (Cone 10 down). The temperature is raised to 1000'C over about 3.5 hours and then reduction is started. Over the next 3 to 4 hours reduction continues and the temperature climbs to about 1280'C. When cone 9 is half way down reduction is stopped and in about 20 minutes cone 10 is down and the kiln is shut off. The small packing space means the kiln load is small (see right) but this does allow frequent firing and rapid progression of test firings.

Glazes are often tested. This is a New Zealand glaze taken from a magazine. Several tests were needed to get the base glaze to fit our clay. A three way line blend (left) was used to find interesting colours. The colour areas where then looked at in more detail with simple line blends. After more testing on larger test pots we now use two of these glazes and our specked blue and green glazes (see above right).

Finished pots are stored in our workshop. We sell through exhibitions, local shops and some local craft fairs.

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Tel 01329 833112       Email Pottery        Last updated 26 Oct 2003