Mel Jacobson on tue 16 sep 97
the glazer:
mr. tanabe was our glazer. he could really glaze pots...and he did
most of them. it was a tedious business, but he was the man for it.
he was the least sharp socially in the pottery, I think he was a little
bit slow, did not finish high school, just put him to work. sometimes
he was the brunt of jokes . he had a bad lisp and when he was excited
he would spit all over us when he talked. the boys would call him
tempura mouth, (like tempura hitting hot oil)......mr. tanabe was very
loyal to mr. uchida. he would do whatever he was told, and do it
well. he never went home it seemed.
glazing was the hardest thing to do in the pottery. it was all timing.
mr. tanabe had a big watch that had a sweep second hand. god he
loved that watch. mr. uchida liked pots in the glaze for a total of
10 seconds, and boy that meant 10 seconds. mr. tanabe never missed.
each pot had the same coat of glaze.
we would use natural latex rubber as our resist. it was a wonderful
material, really stretchy and nice. each pot was placed onto a banding
wheel, spun and tap centered....one or two hits is all it takes. the latex
was put on the ring foot and over mr. uchida s stamp mark. each latex
mask was the same size...perfect.
it was not uncommon for mr. tanabe to sit for 5 hours straight putting
latex on pots, then have lunch and do it for 5 or 6 more hours. each
one alike. all of that preparation before he even touched a glaze bucket.
we had two glaze rooms, one for white, (white only, and he meant it)
and one for black and the two or three other colored glazes that we used.
mr. tanabe watched those rooms like a hawk.... melsan, no go in white
glaze room ......dame`, you might make a mistake ...ask mr. tanabe,
he will get glaze for you. it was like fort knox in the white room...hell
I was happy to stay out of there.
glazing was a four step process. first we used dippers of bamboo, and
filled the inside of the pot all the way with glaze, counting to 10 seconds,
and dumped the glaze out....while the pot was upside-down we would
roll the piece in our hand so that the drip would roll around the edge
the same number of times. we would then put our hand inside the pot
and dunk it into the bucket to the rim....counting to 10. the pot was set
aside to dry. the next step was to re-center the pot on the banding
wheel and apply a thin coat of glaze to the rim.....if there was a lump
it would be cut off with a razor blade. finally the pot would have
the latex removed and all loose bits of glaze would be brushed off.
oh, god, it was tedious.
I really liked mr. tanabe. he was a pain in the ass, but he was fast, and
would keep ahead of us other guys, and we rarely had to help him
glaze....that is why I liked him so much.
if I ever had to help mr. tanabe, and it was a long day, I would
get like alka seltzer in my pants, and want to throw pots at the
wall and run home screaming. I always liked it when mr. tanabe
was ahead of us....and I checked him out all of the time.
http://www.pclink.com/melpots
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