Vince Pitelka on wed 29 oct 03
It seems to me that one of the primary reasons for trimming a foot on
plates and platters is so that you CAN glaze inside the footring. It does
create a wonderful bottom finish.
I don't much like leaving an unglazed circle in the center of a plate as a
place to put wadding, so I give each piece enough foot rings. Salad plates
only need one foot ring. Dinner plates get two. Platters, depending on
size, might get three or even four foot rings. It is little trouble to trim
the extra foot rings. It looks good, and it keeps the plates and platters
flat, as long as they are fired on flat shelves.
There is another issue here. The larger the diameter of the footring, the
more space the plate takes up on the kiln shelf, because the entire footring
must be supported on the shelf, or there will be serious warpage. I think
that a foot ring belongs right where the slope of the rim meets the well of
the plate - right where the curve starts to straighten out. Some plates are
"lens" shaped, with a constant concave curve. Those plates can have a
fairly small-diameter foot ring, but it should never be so small that the
plate becomes unstable. At any rate, when a plate has a smaller footring,
it can be fired with the rim hanging off the edge of the shelf, which does
the plate no harm at all. This makes a major difference in the number of
pieces you can fit in the kiln. That certainly isn't a reason to trim
smaller-diameter footrings, but it is an advantage of smaller-diameter
footrings.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
615/597-5376
Office - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 x111, FAX 615/597-6803
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
David Beumee on thu 30 oct 03
"I think
> that a foot ring belongs right where the slope of the rim meets the well of
> the plate - right where the curve starts to straighten out."
This is absolutely correct, and a lesson I try to impress on all my
students. It only takes a moment to take a measurement with calipers of the
point where the flat of the bowl or plate meets the wall or rim. Then when the
piece is turned over to trim, you know where the point is which gives the best
possible support to your piece. Sometimes for purely aesthetic reasons I will
move the footring in slightly toward the center of the pot, but never so much
that the bowl or plate does not have stable support. I use porcelain and fire
it to cone 10, so this is particularly important, considering how soft the
clay gets at 1300 C.
David Beumee
Earth Alchemy Pottery
Lafayette, CO
> It seems to me that one of the primary reasons for trimming a foot on
> plates and platters is so that you CAN glaze inside the footring. It does
> create a wonderful bottom finish.
>
> I don't much like leaving an unglazed circle in the center of a plate as a
> place to put wadding, so I give each piece enough foot rings. Salad plates
> only need one foot ring. Dinner plates get two. Platters, depending on
> size, might get three or even four foot rings. It is little trouble to trim
> the extra foot rings. It looks good, and it keeps the plates and platters
> flat, as long as they are fired on flat shelves.
>
> There is another issue here. The larger the diameter of the footring, the
> more space the plate takes up on the kiln shelf, because the entire footring
> must be supported on the shelf, or there will be serious warpage. I think
> that a foot ring belongs right where the slope of the rim meets the well of
> the plate - right where the curve starts to straighten out. Some plates are
> "lens" shaped, with a constant concave curve. Those plates can have a
> fairly small-diameter foot ring, but it should never be so small that the
> plate becomes unstable. At any rate, when a plate has a smaller footring,
> it can be fired with the rim hanging off the edge of the shelf, which does
> the plate no harm at all. This makes a major difference in the number of
> pieces you can fit in the kiln. That certainly isn't a reason to trim
> smaller-diameter footrings, but it is an advantage of smaller-diameter
> footrings.
> Best wishes -
> - Vince
>
> Vince Pitelka
> Appalachian Center for Craft
> Tennessee Technological University
> 1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
> Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
> 615/597-5376
> Office - wpitelka@tntech.edu
> 615/597-6801 x111, FAX 615/597-6803
> http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
>
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