Baffles

One of my boys once had a friend who said he liked coming round to our house to play because Oskar had 'buffers'. I always think of that when I bolt the baffles into the long letter box shaped expansion box. We have 'baffles'! They help to slow the flow of clay in the centre and spread it out to the edge. It takes a while to establish the flow and the last long dish shape we extruded was amazing. One edge was flowing at a faster rate than the other, which caused neat and exact un- planned undulations down one edge while the other was straight. It was beautiful. A pity I made this dish so long that when I tried to shut the door of the kiln it was crushed. Rodger says it should teach me not to be so greedy.

So who got me started on this blogging idea....I now have blogger's back- too long on the computer. Still it should get easier now I am getting the hang of it.

Red Hair (detail)

This detail shows the underside of the extruded length, where it is curled over to form a handle and shows the ridges.

Extruded plate length

Here is a long bit of plate ready to cut off, having been extruded by means of the pugmill with expansion box. It has ridges on the base, already built into the die.

Long swimmer

Here is one of my long undulating dishes

Long wiggly dish in progress

This is a wiggly dish in progress. Here I am adding the handles

Finished stools

Here are two of my finished stools - they are actually quite comfortable though the next ones are going to be taller.

Stools in the kiln

My big kiln suddenly seems to have shrunk and now seems tiny. These two stools are made from the same extrusion

City Link

The piece I made for Potfest in the Park. The theme was 'Clayopolis'. It was an excuse to do something pretty different.

Halves joined

Extruded lengths firming up