The inventory

What the studio actually has

Most members find out the studio owns a wall extruder about eight months in, usually by watching somebody else use it. This is the whole list, what each thing is for, what it costs and whether you need a certification first.

Wheels Hand building Glaze Kilns The building
Inside the studio, the glaze shelves along one wall and the hand building tables and stools beyond
29Wheels
248Slab molds
650+Brush-on glazes
150+Underglazes
4Kilns
nearly 10,000Square feet
The 360 tour

Walk the building instead

The studio’s own 360 tour is the same building with nothing left out: seventeen stops, one walking path, and every machine sitting where it actually sits.

The studio at the start of the 360 tour

It opens full screen on its own page, which is where it belongs: the viewer is close to a megabyte before a single panorama loads.

Room by room

Everything a member can put their hands on

Included means it comes with a membership at any level. Anything with a price beside it is charged separately, and anything with a black tag needs something to happen before you use it.

Wheels and throwing

Everything that spins.

The wheels

Included

Electric wheels across three sections of the wheel room, all the same model and all set up the same way, so the one you sit at behaves like the one you sat at last week.

How to throw on the wheel

A kick wheel

Included

A treadle wheel with no motor, where the speed comes from your leg. Slower, quieter, and a completely different feel from an electric wheel.

How to use a kick wheel

A mini wheel

Included

A small wheel for tiny work. Throwing a two inch pot on a full sized wheel is harder than it sounds, and this solves it.

Throwing on a mini wheel

Bats, banding wheels and chucks

Included

Bats for anything wide or flat, banding wheels for decorating, and chucks for holding an awkward form upside down while you trim it.

Making and using chucks

Hand building

Slabs, extrusion, texture and reclaim.

Slab rollers

IncludedCertification first

Two rollers that turn a lump of clay into an even sheet in about a minute, which is the difference between one slab and twenty.

Slab rollers and slab molds

The slab mold room

IncludedCertification first

A room of slab molds, hump and slump, from tiny dishes to serving platters. Every one is catalogued with what it makes, how much clay to start with and how thick to roll.

The Mold Room

A wall extruder

Included

A lever operated extruder that pushes clay through a die to make coils, handles, tubes and hollow forms in one pull.

How to use the wall extruder

A pug mill

IncludedStaff operated

The machine that mixes and de-airs reclaimed clay and pushes it out ready to use. It is what makes reclaim practical rather than a weekend project.

Pug mills, the pros and cons

Cookie cutters, stamps and texture tools

Included

Shelves of them. Cutters for slabs, roulettes and stamps for texture, and rolling textures for pressing patterns into a fresh slab.

Imprinting textures into clay

Surface and glaze

The wall, the buckets and everything you put on a pot.

The glaze wall

Included

Brush-on glazes, arranged so you can find one by color rather than by name, with a real fired test tile beside every single one.

The Glaze Finder

Underglazes

Included

Underglazes for drawing, lining and painting. They hold a line and do not move in the firing, which is why most colored work is underglaze under a clear.

How to use underglaze

Dipping buckets

By level, or per pieceCertification first

Seven buckets of dipping glaze for a perfectly even coat in one go. Purple Level Members get six of them included and Black Level Members get all seven.

How to use dipping glazes

Mason stains

Priced per colorWeighed by staff

Thirty-two colors sold by the twenty-five grams for coloring clay and slip. They are paid for before they are weighed, and only the main hand building instructor or I weigh one out.

Buy mason stains by the gram

Wax resist, latex and tape

Included

For keeping glaze off a foot, making a crisp edge, or masking a pattern.

Using resists for effect

A spray booth and atomizers

Owners and staff onlyNot for member use

For spraying glaze rather than brushing or dipping it, which is how you get a gradient or an even coat on something too big to dip. Only studio owners and paid employees use the booth, and that is not a membership level thing. Members glaze by brushing or dipping.

Spraying glaze

Kilns and firing

What the heat costs and who runs it.

Four kilns

Bisque free, glaze by volumeStaff operated

Including a large bell lift kiln for the pieces that do not fit anywhere else. Bisque runs to cone 05 and glaze to cone 5½, which is cone 5 with a twelve minute hold.

What a kiln firing does

The baby kiln

Per runAsk first

A small kiln for approved projects, useful when one piece needs a different schedule or cannot wait for a full load. Book it by asking me, the general manager or the studio manager. There is no form.

Loading and unloading a kiln

Raku firing

Per workshopCertification first

Outdoor raku workshops, run as their own events rather than as part of open studio. Raku takes its own certification because it involves fire and tongs.

Get certified for raku

Glaze catchers and kiln cookies

Small charge

Pre-made discs that sit under a pot and catch a running glaze before it welds the piece to a shelf. Cheap, and they save a shelf that is not.

Making a glaze catcher

The building itself

Shelves, sinks, tables and the things nobody lists.

Member shelves

By level

Your own shelf space, sized by level, from half of a divided shelf up to the biggest private shelf in the building.

What each level includes

The wash pit

Included

A proper clay trap sink, which is the only place clay water goes. A domestic drain does not survive clay.

Cleaning up

Drop-off and pick-up tables

Included

Where finished work waits for the kiln and where it comes back to. Work on your own shelf does not get fired, because nobody can tell it apart from work in progress.

How your work moves

Heat lamps

Included

Hanging lamps for speeding up drying on simple even forms. They are also the fastest way to crack good work, so they are worth understanding before using.

When to use the heat lamps

Outside tables

IncludedOutside only

The only place alcohol inks and Pebeo paints are used, because they are solvent based and never go in a kiln.

Applying alcohol inks

A front desk of small things

Priced per item

Tool sets, clippers, epoxy, clay mender, applicator bottles, bumper pads and a bead rack. It runs on trust: once it is paid for, take it.

Helpful pottery items
Paper templates

Patterns to run through the slab roller, drawn at exact size.

Printable patterns drawn at exact size, with a 1 inch check square on every sheet. All 158, five free a month for members logged in to a Clay Hole account.

A speckled stoneware slab mug with a strip handle, full of coffee on a wooden table, from The Clay Hole paper template Paper template 01 The Slab MugA straight-sided 11 ounce mug with a slab handle.about 11 oz, 4 3/16 in tall, 3 1/16 in across$4(Free for members)Open A folded black stoneware serving tray holding nigiri sushi, made from The Clay Hole folded tray paper template Paper template 08 The Folded Serving TrayOne slab, four corners cut away, sides folded up. The fastest tray there is.6 5/8 in x 4 3/8 in with 1 1/8 in sides$4(Free for members)Open A small speckled charcoal six-sided stoneware table lamp lit on a round side table, made from The Clay Hole paper template Paper template 11 The Slab Table LampA tapered six-sided lamp body with the socket hole and the cord hole drawn in, built to take a standard lamp kit.8 9/16 in tall to the top plate, 4 13/16 in across the base$12(Free for members)Open
Not here

Five things the studio does not have

Knowing what is not here saves more time than knowing what is.

Slip casting

The studio does not slip cast and never will. Slab molds are not casting molds, and this is the single most common mix-up in a pottery studio.

Lusters and overglazes

Not stocked. Members who want gold, platinum or mother of pearl bring their own, and they fire at their own low temperature.

Oxides and carbonate washes

Not stocked. Mason stains are, which covers most of what people reach for a wash to do.

Shipping

Nothing the studio sells ships, with one exception: print on demand merchandise, which is drop shipped by the printer.

A reduction kiln

Every firing is oxidation, which is what an electric kiln does. Reduction colors need a fuel kiln and the studio does not have one.

Before you use it

Four certifications, and why each one exists

  • Slab rollers and slab molds. A roller under load can be damaged by one careless pass, and a cracked slab mold is not replaceable.
  • Dipping glaze. A bucket is a shared resource with a density that has to stay right. One wrong dip wastes it for everyone.
  • Glaze and underglaze. The short version of what goes on a pot, how thick, and what has to stay bare.
  • Raku. Fire, tongs, and a reduction chamber, outdoors, at night.

One thing worth knowing about open studio

Open Studio Managers keep open studio running, help with clay purchases and hold the line on cleanup. They are deliberately not there to teach pottery, which keeps open studio what it was meant to be. Instruction is what the classes are for.

Walk the studio The member guide