Fix Your Pottery After a Glaze Firing

Glaze ran off the foot, pooled, cooled, and welded your pot and its cookie into one proud object. Flux glazes love doing this. Running Hot Chowder did not get that name by sitting still. The good news: the cookie did its job. Better it than the kiln shelf.

You’ll need:

• Safety glasses
• Folded towel
• Rubber mallet (or hammer + small cold chisel)
• Rotary tool or hand stone
• Wet/dry 120, 240, 400
• Water

1. Glasses on. Not negotiable. The break flings glass chips, and it flings them at whoever is closest, which is you.
2. Set the pot on a folded towel on a solid table, cookie side toward you.
3. Read the seam. A thin glaze bridge between pot and cookie snaps clean. A thick puddle that swallowed the foot does not. Thick puddle? Skip to step 6.
4. Tap the cookie, never the pot. Light sideways taps with the rubber mallet, right at the seam, rotating the pot a little between taps. Most thin fuses pop free within a lap or two.
5. Still stuck? Bring the chisel. Rest the edge in the seam at a low angle, bevel toward the cookie, never aimed into the pot and never straight down. Light hammer taps, working around the perimeter. Escalate slowly. It lets go all at once, so keep your fingers out of the landing zone.
6. Thick puddle or cookie chunks still welded on? Stop tapping. Tapping a thick fuse breaks pots. Grind instead: slice the bulk off with a rotary cutting disc (or an angle grinder cup wheel for the big stuff), then grind the remainder flush.
7. Smooth the scar. Wet-sand 120, then 240, then 400.
8. Run the palm test. Drag the foot across your palm. Anything you feel, keep sanding.

Let it go when: the fuse climbs up the wall of the pot, or a tap flexes the pot instead of the cookie. Grinding a side wall leaves a scar that never polishes back to pretty.

The glaze kept moving after you stopped watching, and now there’s a bead or a full glass icicle hanging below the foot. First, an important distinction: a drip that stops above the foot is decoration. Leave it. Brag about it. This fix is only for glass that hangs past the bottom, catches the table, or draws blood.

You’ll need:

• Safety glasses
• Painter’s tape
• Rotary tool + diamond cutting disc + diamond bit
• Hand stone or 120 pad
• Wet/dry 240, 400
• Water

1. Tape around the drip. Two layers of painter’s tape on the glaze you want to keep. A skating bit stops at tape more politely than it stops at glaze.
2. Cut the bulk off with the diamond cutting disc, close to the surface but not flush. Slow. Let the disc cut. Do not lever it sideways; thin discs shatter, and shattered discs travel.
3. Grind the stump flush with a diamond bit or the corner of a wet hand stone. Dip the bit in water every few seconds. Water is the difference between grinding and cooking.
4. Wet-sand the spot smooth. 120 if it’s rough, then 240, then 400.
5. Check the foot edge by touch, gently. A drip at the very edge often hides a sharp lip underneath where it curled. Find it with careful fingers, not with next week’s dish towel.

Let it go when: honestly, almost never. Drips are the most fixable problem on this entire page. This is the one you win.

Glaze beaded up at an edge, a pinhole burst into a tiny crater with a rim like a broken bottle, a bare spot flaked, or a chip left a razor line. Whatever the origin story, the physics are the same: fired glaze is glass, and glass edges want blood. This fix is small, satisfying, and worth doing on every functional piece you make.

You’ll need:

• Cotton ball
• Hand stone or 120/240 diamond pad
• Rotary tool + fine diamond bit (tight spots)
• Wet/dry 400
• Water
• Safety glasses

1. Find every sharp spot with a cotton ball. Drag it slowly over rims, handles, edges, and the foot. It snags on anything that would later snag a lip or a finger. Cotton doesn’t lie and cotton doesn’t bleed.
2. Knock each point down with a wet 120 stone or pad. Small circles, light pressure, just until the point is gone.
3. Chase it with 240, then 400, until your fingertip can’t find where it was.
4. Tight spot? Inside a handle, deep in a texture, on a carved edge: use the rotary tool with a small diamond bit, dipped in water, at low speed.
5. Rims that meet mouths get the full ladder. Take drinking rims to 800 or beyond. Lips notice everything.

Let it go when: the sharpness is a whole field of burst blisters across a surface that touches food. Grind the worst, dab on fresh glaze, refire. If it comes out of the refire still angry, it has announced its new career as a pen cup.

The unglazed foot fired with a tooth to it. Groggy clay bodies come out feeling like 60-grit on purpose; even smooth bodies can pick up a little bite. Left alone, that foot will scratch every table it ever meets, and it will start with the one that matters. People pick a pot up, feel the bottom, and quietly decide what kind of potter you are. Rude, but true.

You’ll need:

• Wet/dry 220 + 400 (or diamond pads 240/400/800)
• Water
• Towel
• Bucket
• Optionally: one other pot

1. Wet the foot, wet the abrasive. Everything on this fix happens wet.
2. Lay the sandpaper flat on the table, grit up, and move the pot on it in circles and figure eights. Thirty to sixty seconds at 220.
3. Rinse, feel, repeat at 400. Stop when your fingertips stop filing complaints.
4. Want to show off? Keep climbing: 800, then 1500. A foot that feels like sea glass is the quietest flex in pottery.
5. The freebie: rub two pots’ bare feet together over the bucket, in circles, thirty seconds. Both come out better. The buddy system, for pottery.

Let it go when: never. This one always works. Enjoy it.

The pot rocks. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Forever. Usually it’s one of three culprits: an uneven foot, a bead of glaze hiding under the foot ring, or a little warp the kiln threw in for free. The first two grind out beautifully. The third one is the pot’s personality now.

You’ll need:

• A truly flat surface (glass, granite, a good countertop)
• Pencil
• Coarse pad or full sheet of coarse wet/dry, taped down flat
• Wet/dry 240, 400
• Water

1. Find the villain. Set the pot on the flat surface and press opposite edges. Where it rocks, look and feel under the foot. Pencil-mark every contact point that’s doing too much.
2. If it’s a glaze bead: that’s just a drip in hiding. Grind only the bead (the drip fix), re-test, done.
3. If it’s the foot itself: tape coarse abrasive dead flat to the table, grit up, and grind the foot on it in circles with even downward pressure. The flat abrasive finds the high spots for you. Check every fifteen seconds.
4. Batch potter? This is the wheel-mounted diamond disc’s whole reason for existing. Water dripping on the spinning disc, pot pressed gently foot-down. Flat happens.
5. Finish 240, then 400, so the newly flat foot is also a newly kind foot.

Let it go when: the wall is warped and the pot leans rather than rocks. Grinding can’t un-warp anything. The word you’re looking for is “organic.” Say it with confidence.

White crusty patches on the foot, or a few gritty crumbs of cookie that hitched a ride. Kiln wash exists so things don’t stick permanently, which is why this stuff shears right off. This is the fix you do while your coffee is still hot.

You’ll need:

• Stiff nylon brush
• Hand stone or 120 pad
• Wet/dry 240, 400
• Water
• Dust mask for the dry brushing

1. Dry-brush the loose stuff off outside, mask on. Most of it surrenders immediately.
2. Wet-grind the welded patches with the 120 stone or pad. Kiln wash is soft compared to glaze; it goes fast.
3. Finish 240, then 400. Palm test. Done. Look at you.

Let it go when: not applicable. If this one beats you, put the tools down and have a snack. Come back stronger.

Grinding removes gloss. That’s the deal you made. Where the tool touched, glossy glaze is now a matte scar with fine scratches in it. You have two ways back, and one of them involves fire, so obviously it’s the fun one.

You’ll need:

• Route 1: diamond pads 400, 800, 1500 (3000 if you own it)
• Route 2: a dab of the same glaze + a refire
• Water either way

1. Route 1: polish it. Wet pads, climbing the ladder: 400, then 800, then 1500. Each grit erases the scratches of the one before it. You’ll land at glossy-adjacent, which on a foot or an underside is plenty.
2. Route 2: refire it. Heat re-melts the glaze surface and the gloss comes all the way back. If grinding left a low or bare spot, dab fresh glaze on it first and let it dry fully. Glossy glazes usually heal beautifully in a refire. Mattes are moodier; test one before betting a favorite.
3. Refiring at the studio: a refire is just another glaze firing, at our normal cone 5½, and standard firing fees apply: $4.80 for anything 100 cubic inches or under, five cents per cubic inch above that. Put it on a cookie. The glaze already ran once. It remembers how.

Let it go when: the scar is mid-wall on a showpiece and neither polish nor refire redeemed it. Congratulations, the pot has texture now. Artists pay for texture.

Two pieces touched in the fire, or one pot’s drip found a neighbor, and now they’re holding hands in glass. Deep breath before this one: separation works often, but the break chooses which pot pays for it, and it does not take requests.

You’ll need:

• Safety glasses (seriously, this is the fix they were invented for)
• Painter’s tape
• Rotary tool + diamond cutting disc
• Rubber mallet
• Towel-lined workspace
• Realistic expectations

1. Assess the bridge. A small glaze kiss at a rim or edge is beatable. A wide melted seam where two walls leaned together is not. Be honest with yourself here; the next steps can’t be.
2. Tape both pieces around the joint. Tape keeps chips local and gives flying fragments something boring to do.
3. Score the bridge with the diamond cutting disc, as deep as you can safely reach. Every bit of glass you remove now is force you won’t need later.
4. One light lateral tap with the mallet, at the scored line, pieces supported on the towel. Then look. Then maybe one more. This is a conversation, not an argument.
5. When they part, each piece keeps a scar. Grind and smooth it (sharp edges), then polish or refire (dull spots).

Let it go when: they fused body-to-body across a real patch of wall. Two pots walked into that kiln and one sculpture walked out. Name it. Put it somewhere people will ask about it.

1. Glasses on. Set the pot on a folded towel on a solid table, cookie side toward you.
2. Read the seam. A thin glaze bridge snaps clean. A thick puddle that swallowed the foot does not, so skip to step 4.
3. Tap the cookie, never the pot. Light sideways taps with a rubber mallet at the seam, rotating the pot between taps. Still stuck? Rest a cold chisel in the seam at a low angle, bevel toward the cookie, and escalate slowly.
4. Thick fuse? Grind, don’t tap. Tapping a thick fuse breaks pots. Slice the bulk off with a rotary diamond disc, then grind the remainder flush.
5. Wet-sand the scar 120, 240, 400. Drag the foot across your palm; anything you feel, keep sanding.

Let it go when: the fuse climbs up the wall of the pot, or a tap flexes the pot instead of the cookie.

A drip that stops above the foot is decoration. Leave it. This is only for glass that hangs past the bottom.

1. Tape around the drip. Two layers of painter’s tape on the glaze you want to keep. A skating bit stops at tape more politely than it stops at glaze.
2. Cut the bulk off with a rotary diamond cutting disc, close but not flush. Never lever it sideways; thin discs shatter, and shattered discs travel.
3. Grind the stump flush with a diamond bit, dipped in water every few seconds. Water is the difference between grinding and cooking.
4. Wet-sand 120, 240, 400, then check the foot edge by touch for the sharp lip a drip often hides where it curled.

Let it go when: almost never. This is the one you win.

1. Drag a cotton ball slowly over rims, handles, edges and the foot. It snags on anything that would later snag a lip. Cotton doesn’t lie and cotton doesn’t bleed.
2. Knock each point down with a wet 120 stone or pad. Small circles, light pressure, until the point is gone.
3. Chase it with 240, then 400, until your fingertip can’t find it. Drinking rims go to 800. Lips notice everything.
4. Tight spots want the rotary tool with a small diamond bit, dipped in water, at low speed.

Let it go when: it’s a whole field of burst blisters on a food surface. Grind the worst, dab on fresh glaze, refire.

1. Rough foot: lay 220 wet/dry flat on the table, grit up, and move the pot on it in circles for thirty to sixty seconds. Rinse, feel, repeat at 400. Climb to 800 for a foot that feels like sea glass.
2. Stuck kiln wash or cookie crumbs: dry-brush the loose stuff off outside with a mask on, then wet-grind the welded patches with a 120 pad and finish 240 and 400. Kiln wash is soft. It goes fast.
3. Wobbler: set the pot on something truly flat, press opposite edges, and pencil-mark the contact points doing too much work. A bead of glaze under the foot ring is a drip in hiding, so grind only the bead.
4. If it’s the foot itself, tape coarse abrasive dead flat to the table and grind the foot on it in circles with even pressure. Check every fifteen seconds. You can always grind more; ungrinding remains unavailable.
5. The free version: rub two pots’ bare feet together over a bucket, in circles, thirty seconds. Unglazed clay on unglazed clay only.

Let it go when: the pot leans rather than rocks. That’s a warp, and grinding can’t un-warp anything.

1. Assess the bridge. A small glaze kiss at a rim is beatable. A wide melted seam where two walls leaned together is not.
2. Tape both pieces around the joint, and decide now which pot you’d sacrifice. The break chooses, and it does not take requests.
3. Score the bridge with a rotary diamond cutting disc, as deep as you can safely reach, angled to favor the pot you want to keep.
4. One light lateral tap at the scored line, pieces supported on a towel. Then look. Then maybe one more. This is a conversation, not an argument.
5. Grind each scar smooth the way you’d handle any sharp edge, then polish or refire.

Let it go when: they fused body-to-body across real wall. Two pots walked into that kiln and one sculpture walked out. Name it.