Stuart Ridgway on thu 26 feb 98
To Sylvia and the Clayart discussion list
I try to prepare a block of fresh pugged clay or well wedged
recycled clay into a rough cylinder and center it by eye and also using my
hands as distance from the circumference of the wheel gauges. I have a 2 ft
long piece of 1 1/2 inch square wood beam in the middle of which I have
mounted a wide wheeled caster on one face and a narrow wheeled caster on the
opposite face. At the start I use this beam as a club to pound out
projections, and pound the clay firmly onto the wheel head. Then holding
the beam at both ends and bracing it against my knees I apply alternately
the narrow and the wide roller to form the clay into a reasonable cylinder.
In this process the irregularities get moved to the top where they can be
cut off, or clubbed back into the general mass with the beam.
For opening I use the handle of an ancient wood turning chisel that
is about 1 1/4 inches in diameter, or a plastic childrens baseball bat
slightly lubricated with water, and press it down into the center of the
clay while applying a roller by hand on the outside to prevent cracking of
the outside surface from the stretching induced by punching the hole.
Sometimes I just machine out a starting hole with a wire loop trimming tool.
I have a twin roller set with a small wheel in one arm for the early
stages of pulling up. The wheel came from a hobby shop. In its intended use
it was from the landing gear of a model airplane.
Falcon in San Diego makes wooden rollers mounted on wire frames that
are handy for the single roller operations.
Stuart Ridgway
537 9th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90402
ridgway@gte.net
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