[Article] kiwi was right - stay away from makerspaces. You'll get a bad case of the hobbies.

So the Windsor Maker Studio opened in town. It's a combination makerspace and store/gallery that a bunch of local hobbyists/philantrophists threw together.

They make stuff, they sell stuff, they teach you how to do stuff, and you can get a membership and use their stuff to do stuff. And they're a great crowd of people to boot.




A bunch of us got together there one night for a one-night pottery lesson thing. I made a really awful sugar dish thing on the pottery wheel with a lid that doesn't fit right. We had a blast.



Anyway, while I was there I spotted this old ceramic christmas tree in their storefront. I fuckin' love these, they're such a reminder of childhood christmas. I asked were they got the old thing... nope, it's not old, it's brand new and they make them in-house!



So I chatted up the lady that did our ceramic course, who also made these ceramic trees, and she told me all about it: slip casting!

You make a plaster mould and fill it up with liquid clay 'slip'. It hardens against the walls of the mould, then you pour the excess out and you're left with a clay shell in the shape of the mould. It's sorta like how they make those bullshit hollow easter bunnies that made you feel ripped off as a kid.

Here's another example of slip casting they're doing at the Maker Studio, with a plaster mould that someone donated:



Anyway, all this got me thinking. I've got this piece of shit:



And if I fire up fusion 360 and do this shit:



Then I can 3D print this shit.



Then I can cast that shit in plaster of paris:



And if I'm real careful with it, I can carefully pull the 3D printed part out of the plaster without damaging it, right?



Well that didn't go to plan, the top ring cracked off when I took the 3D printed piece out, and I broke a bunch of stuff off the bottom. But fuck it, I'm gonna tape this shit together and try using it anyway!

 

[gee]

So now that I've got a plaster slip casting mould made, I need some casting slip. Here at the maker studio, they make it from scratch with three ingredients: clay, water and magic. And that starts by getting angry at a bunch of dried clay scraps:



After some smashing and rolling, I've got a more desirable texture that'll dissolve quicker.



Then we add the magic: Darvan 7, the deflocculant. It electrically charges the clay particles in slip so they repel each other, which keeps them in suspension instead of clumping together or settling to the bottom. It also lets you have a much higher clay content in the slip while keeping it liquid, which is important for slip casting to work.



So then you do some math and make the slip. Everything gets weighed together and mixed together for a long time with an electric mixer, then you measure the density, then you add more clay or more water to get the density right. Once the density's right you add more deflocculant until you get a stable liquid that doesn't immediately turn to gel.



And once you've done all that stuff, into the mold it goes:



The slip was supposed to set in there only for 5 minutes. But it barely drooped in the center or formed anything against the walls or anything like it was supposed to. So I left it in there for a whole half hour before I dumped it out. Then I realized I fucked up the density calculation and there was too much water in the slip.

Then I broke a chunk off the mold. Oops:



But I let the thing dry out for a good week, then wrapped a bunch of tape around it and prepared to do another cast. Yeah there's a chunk broken out of the mould, but fuck it, I'm still gonna try once more.

 

[gee]

And then I did another major fuck-up: I forgot to take any pictures of any of the rest of the process.

I got my bucket of slip adjusted right with the right density. But I didn't have enough deflocculant so it gelled in the mold and wouldn't properly pour out, but it actually formed walls this time at least. Even though they're uneven as hell.

I let the casting fully dry in the mold, pulled it out and cleaned it up when it was leather hard. I made and attached a handle to it, let it dry out for another while and had the studio bisque fire it. And the handle fell off. But that's fine, the kiln gods have decided I'm making a cup instead of a mug.

With the help of the belt sander in the wood shop, I cleaned the thing up as best I could, getting rid of what was left of the handle attachment, and glazed it with a mixture of red and white glaze.

Then it went into the kiln for the final firing. And here's what came out...









It looks like ass, but it's mine, and I made it from scratch, and I'm proud of it.

For reference, here's the original concept:



I've got another mold made, and a bunch of other ideas for things to do, and soon I'm gonna make a version 2 cup. I'll post some more updates as that project goes along.

And in the meantime, the missus has picked up the hobby 10x worse than me. She's rocking the pottery wheel and she's picked up slab building. And she also has that whole "creativity" thing I completely lack. Like check this shit out:



So yeah. kiwi warned us. Stay away from makerspaces. They'll suck you in.

 

[kiwi]

Oh man. You are a pottery addict now too!

Watch the great pottery showdown and wire the new house with a plug for a kiln. Save you the trouble of having to add it in later.

I want to try slip casting one day.

 

[ZRH]

That's pretty cool. Up in NY there was a tool library in loke 2008, sorta similar concept. They had all the cabinet tools and meetups and stuff.

Your wife should make a little village, thats cool looking.

 

[Dory Berkowitz-Bukowski]

Thats awesome. Love the journey photos along the way

 

[Mr. Argumentor]

In Tampa we don't have a maker space, we have a Hacker Space, eugh.

 

[Mr. Argumentor]

That being said, you aren't really sucked in yet. I have a friend that goes on trips and picks up bags of rocks. He geotags the location and then takes them home and crushes them to make his own glazes.
That fucker is sucked into pottery.

I like the little house.

 

[gee]

Oh man. You are a pottery addict now too!

Watch the great pottery showdown and wire the new house with a plug for a kiln. Save you the trouble of having to add it in later.

I want to try slip casting one day.

Pottery showdown: binged already. And got a bunch of new pottery YouTube channel subscriptions - the missus is especially fond of 'pottery to the people' channel.

Plug for the kiln: going in the utility closet room of the new house eventually we figure, panel is there and the HRV is there too that I can use for ventilation when it's going, and the heat from the thing will heat up the room. Small manner of the house not existing yet to deal with first, so we'll work with the maker studio kiln in the meantime. I'm keeping an eye on used kilns - someone's selling an old one with a mechanical kilnsetter on it for dirt cheap, that I'm tempted to outfit with a proper ramp/soak PID controller, maybe it'll still be around when the house is ready and if not maybe another one will pop up.

I'm most interested in slip casting for making coffee mugs. The vantiki youtube channel specializes in slip casted tiki mugs (whatever the fuck they are, hah) and they're full of all sorts of information on mold making, slip casting, doing silicone casts of molds to make more molds, etc.

 

[gee]

That being said, you aren't really sucked in yet. I have a friend that goes on trips and picks up bags of rocks. He geotags the location and then takes them home and crushes them to make his own glazes.
That fucker is sucked into pottery.

I like the little house.

Dunno about collecting wild glaze, but there's a few local people that make ceramics using mud from the Bay of Fundy right here.

Fundy Mud Pottery

fundymudpottery.com

fundymudpottery.com

 

[Mr. Argumentor]

I still have like half a dozen kilns on the back porch that I need to do something with.

 

[gee]

I still have like half a dozen kilns on the back porch that I need to do something with.

sell them to pottery obsessed weirdos

 

[kiwi]

After reviewing this thread, I think all thread titles should start with “kiwi was right”.

 

[Mr. Argumentor]

sell them to pottery obsessed weirdos

I really need to. Probably gonna do that for most of 'em

 

[Mr. Argumentor]

 

[Hoff Kinkmeister]

Gear is the worst part of hobbies.

 

[gee]

View attachment 17112

fucks sake

if it didn't cost 3 kilns to ship a kiln to nova scotia, I'd take one.

 

[ZRH]

fucks sake

if it didn't cost 3 kilns to ship a kiln to nova scotia, I'd take one.

I have a friend who built his own. Charcoal fuel. It was mostly brick I think. He also gets his own clay from some farm.

I'm not really familiar with pottery stuff.

 

[gee]

I have a friend who built his own. Charcoal fuel. It was mostly brick I think. He also gets his own clay from some farm.

I'm not really familiar with pottery stuff.

My plan is electric kiln + ramp/soak PID controller.

Load the kiln, press some buttons on the controller to select what I want to do and walk away. And the thing will do a slow ramp to a low drying temperature to drive out any remaining moisture, then ramp to 1800F or 2300F or whatever depending on the type of clay I'm firing. And do it all overnight when I'm asleep and power is cheap.

I could build my own outside and run it off charcoal etc... but it'll be a pile of babysitting work and labor and whatever, dealing with weather conditions, etc... and I couldn't be arsed.

 

[ZRH]

My plan is electric kiln + ramp/soak PID controller.

Load the kiln, press some buttons on the controller to select what I want to do and walk away. And the thing will do a slow ramp to a low drying temperature to drive out any remaining moisture, then ramp to 1800F or 2300F or whatever depending on the type of clay I'm firing. And do it all overnight when I'm asleep and power is cheap.

I could build my own outside and run it off charcoal etc... but it'll be a pile of babysitting work and labor and whatever, dealing with weather conditions, etc... and I couldn't be arsed.

He also paints... lemme see if I can find a pic, it'll be in the pix thread. Somehow he makes a living off it.