Throwing Thursday - 2nd Throw - Neuse River Witch

On my second trip to the wheel I switched from the white clay over to the red clay. At this point I only have two bats. That means I have to use the wire to cut each bowl off the bat in order to use it again on the next pot. I will be getting more bats in the future to avoid this. Letting the pot sit on the bat until it is leather hard lets you put the bat back on the wheel and do the trimming without the need to re-center the pot.

It also eliminates the misshapen and distortion of the pots that occur while moving it wet.

Photo Credit - Renee Olson

After about 2 days, the pots get to a state called leather hard. This is where the clay can sill be shaped and but it has a firm feel to it. This is when trimming would occur or if I wanted to add a handle, I can do so at this point. As you can see below the clay looks a bit dryer than the photos above.

Photo Credit - Renee Olson

After a few more days, it will fluctuate based on the temperature, the clay reaches a state called bone dry. At this point I'll can either do a fire on the clay, or put it back in the water to revert it back to a state that I can put back on the wheel. Currently, I don't fire anything. I'm in a practice mode and just let everything dry to bone dry, then toss it back in the water.