Steven Goldate on thu 18 sep 03
I was intrigued to find a reference to 'throwing hard clay without water' in a book
entry on Michael Frimkess. I found an entry from 2001 in Clayart about 'throwing
with leatherhard clay' here: http://www.potters.org/subject47365.htm.
Does anyone know any more about this??
thanks,
Steven
PS Please CC any replies to sgoldate@bigpond.net.au - I don't always get around
to thoroughly checking the digest!
-----------------------------------------
Steven Goldate
Editor
Ceramics Today
http://www.ceramicstoday.com
ceramics@ceramicstoday.com
-----------------------------------------
John K Dellow on thu 18 sep 03
Sounds like a recipe for stuffed wrists.
John
Steven Goldate wrote:
>I was intrigued to find a reference to 'throwing hard clay without water' in a book
>entry on Michael Frimkess. I found an entry from 2001 in Clayart about 'throwing
>with leatherhard clay' here: http://www.potters.org/subject47365.htm.
>
>Does anyone know any more about this??
>
>thanks,
>Steven
>
>PS Please CC any replies to sgoldate@bigpond.net.au - I don't always get around
>to thoroughly checking the digest!
>-----------------------------------------
>Steven Goldate
>Editor
>Ceramics Today
>http://www.ceramicstoday.com
>ceramics@ceramicstoday.com
>-----------------------------------------
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
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--
John Dellow "the flower pot man"
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Susan Setley on thu 18 sep 03
In a message dated 9/18/03 7:43:53 AM, dellowjk@OPTUSNET.COM.AU writes:
<< Sounds like a recipe for stuffed wrists.
John
Steven Goldate wrote:
>I was intrigued to find a reference to 'throwing hard clay without water' in
a book
>entry on Michael Frimkess. I found an entry from 2001 in Clayart about
'throwing
>with leatherhard clay' here: http://www.potters.org/subject47365.htm.
>
>Does anyone know any more about this?? >>
I can't imagine that they meant starting with leather hard clay, but when
your clay is headed toward leather hard you can put a piece back on the wheel and
make some thrown features more distinct. I've seen it done.
Jon Pacini on fri 19 sep 03
Greetings All
Sometime in the 70's when I worked For Westwood Ceramic Supply, we were
making clay for Frimkess. We could never get it hard enough for him. Finally
we got tired of shipping it back and forth and had him come in when his clay
was being made.
He came in with his assistant, his wheel, and some throwing gloves that
had stainless steel finger tips attached. He took the clay right from the
pug mill and threw paper thin pots. 15 pounders--very large when paper thin.
No water, no nothing. The clay was so hard I thought the pugmill blades were
going to fail, the machine was groaning like a son of a gun. The clay was so
stiff it was off the scale of the pentrometer that I use for hydraulic press
clay.
Now, I like to throw with firm clay. The advantage being it that you can
do thinner forms and stretch the clay and not worry about it flopping on you
as you do with softer clay. I also put gum in my throwing water, better
lubrication and it doesn't seem to get absorbed into the clay as fast.
I learned to work that way when I worked as a journeyman thrower in
production shops. Yes, it's tough on the joints, but when you're young,
getting paid by the piece and the amount of clay you use is dictated by the
freight weight, I had to learn other ways of working than what I was taught
in Art School.
The way Frimkess works with his clay, well, if you only have to make a
couple of hundred pots a year, you could get away with that.
Jon Pacini
Clay Manager
Laguna Clay Co
iandol on sat 20 sep 03
Dear Jon Pacini=20
An interesting description of the methodology of Mr Frimkess. How gutsy =
was the clay? What flavour was it?
But "Paper Thin" seems to have the flavour of exaggeration, like, could =
it really be no thicker than a quarter of a millimetre.=20
Now the stainless steel glove tips may be a clue. Polished steel would =
present very little friction in comparison to a naked finger tip, which =
is biologically engineered by Mother Nature to have a non slip surface.
Thanks for the information.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis. Redhill, South Australia
Lee Love on sat 20 sep 03
Soft clay is easier on the human body. Before pugmills, this is
what was used.
To throw large, thin walled forms, don't use a lot of water.
Throw with slip. If you want to throw really large forms, coil and
throw. Use a torch to dry the clay if it won't hold the next coil.
Lee In Mashiko
Malcolm Schosha on sun 21 sep 03
What I think would be really interesting is to know what he went
through center and open clay that hard, and how did he keep the force
necessary from riping the clay loose from the wheel head.
Malcolm
..........................................
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, iandol wrote:
> Dear Jon Pacini
>
> An interesting description of the methodology of Mr Frimkess. How
gutsy was the clay? What flavour was it?
>
> But "Paper Thin" seems to have the flavour of exaggeration, like,
could it really be no thicker than a quarter of a millimetre.
>
> Now the stainless steel glove tips may be a clue. Polished steel
would present very little friction in comparison to a naked finger
tip, which is biologically engineered by Mother Nature to have a non
slip surface.
>
> Thanks for the information.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ivor Lewis. Redhill, South Australia
>
>
______________________________________________________________________
________
> Send postings to clayart@l...
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your
subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
melpots@p...
Jon Pacini on mon 22 sep 03
Malcolm wrote:
What I think would be really interesting is to know what he went
through center and open clay that hard, and how did he keep the force
necessary from riping the clay loose from the wheel head.
----------------------------
iandol wrote:
> Dear Jon Pacini
>
> An interesting description of the methodology of Mr Frimkess. How
gutsy was the clay? What flavour was it?
>
> But "Paper Thin" seems to have the flavour of exaggeration, like,
could it really be no thicker than a quarter of a millimetre.
>
> Now the stainless steel glove tips may be a clue. Polished steel
would present very little friction in comparison to a naked finger
tip, which is biologically engineered by Mother Nature to have a non
slip surface.
Greetings all---------We put an oversized round die on the pugmill for his
clay so it was already round and about 8 in. in diameter, not a standard
square pug. He slapped it down end wise on the wheel head ---viola,
centered.
He opened this vertical pug with the point of his elbow and had a wet cloth
or rubber pad wrapped around it. He used a lot of ribs and sticks in the
shaping/finishing process.
I don't recall what his bats were made of. But I do recall he loaded the
"wet" pots into the back seat of his car and drove off with them.
His formula was/is very complex about 12 or so ingredients, lots of
different clays, sands and grogs. Can you believe it--- I still have it on
file here, had to dig deep ---we used 38 gals of water mixed with 1850#
minerals. That's 16% !!!! Normally we use 55 gals to 1750# for stock
throwing clay. That's 24%.
I'm not exaggerating by much when I say paper thin. His goal was
translucency using this fireclay/red clay based body of his. Not an easy
task by any standard.
If you're wondering how I remember all this--- it's not an everyday
occurrence to have someone come in to the plant and do this. And if you've
ever met Frimkess, well, let's say he's a memorable individual.
Best regards
Jon Pacini
Clay Manager
Laguna Clay Co
John Rodgers on sat 20 sep 08
Throwing with hard clay!!
Don't!
The price you will pay is simply not worth it.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Lili Krakowski on sat 20 sep 08
I guess I owe an apology to The One who throws 24" pots our of 8
lbs of clay.
I have seen huge pots thrown--and of course Izaac Walton became a
legend for them.
So congratulations.
But a word of caution. I attribute my carpal tunnel problems to
throwing with hard clay when I was younger. If you Google c.p
(Heard ye, Vince!) you may learn that women get c.p more
frequently then men, and that women have smaller carpal tunnels,
which may explain why they are more prone to c.p. AND having big
hands--I do--does not help. As a surgeon told me: a man with
small hands is likelier to have a bigger carpal tunnel than a
woman with huge paws.
Lili Krakowski
Be of good courage
gayle bair on sun 21 sep 08
If I recall correctly the demonstrator mentioned a bad back and
having only a few more of those pots left in him.
I have to protect my wrists.
Whenever I force myself to use clay that is too I pay for it.
It just isn't worth it. I can wait a day for my clay to soften up
rather than
do irreparable damage to my wrists & shorten my clay career!
Gayle Bair
Bainbridge Island WA
Tucson AZ
gayle@claybair.com
www.claybair.com
On Sep 20, 2008, at 8:04 PM, John Rodgers wrote:
> Throwing with hard clay!!
>
> Don't!
>
> The price you will pay is simply not worth it.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> Chelsea, AL
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