Above is a picture of the lunch plates. A stack of 4 getting ready to go in the bisque firing. They have come out and are a pristine white now, ready for the glaze coating.
The plates are thrown on the potter’s
wheel on ‘bats’. These are plastic discs fitted
on the wheel head with bat pins. Bats give
me the capability of taking the plate off
the wheel without distorting the form.
The plate then dries to a leather hard stage, still
on the bat.Then I trim the ‘foot’. Each plate, at the final
stage, is to be 8 inches. I throw the plates
to 9 1/2 inches when wet. Over the different
stages of drying the clay shrinks 1 1/2 inches!
This is about 12.5 - 13 percent.
