[Jo-Ann]

Glazed my lid on . . . More times than I'd like to admit :S once I did it right after warning a student not to . . .

[TJR]

OffCenter, on 16 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

Round2potter, on 16 February 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

Cheers! lets all learn from each others mistakes!

Like how not to position a picture for your avatar?

Jim

Jim;
Is that what you look like?!!
TJR

[SShirley]

Fun thread!
I have done some real dandies, like almost setting myself on fire while lighting a raku kiln, but the funniest must be the time when a clay friend and I were trying to speed up the drying of some wax on a pot - with a propane torch. And we have close to 40 years experience between us. Duh!

[Denice]

The busted tiles reminded me of another bone head move, I was getting ready to pack 12 tall thin willowy gourd type pots to take to a gallery. I had just set them up to start wrapping them when my husband slammed the back door really hard upstairs. He had just replace the weather seals on it and was testing it out, the force caused a gust of wind to come down the stairs and knock my pots over like bowling pins. All but one broke, I decide maybe this wasn't the best design to have at a gallery, they have doors too. Denice

[TJR]

Denise;
Your bowling pins reminded me of an actual bone head mistake that I made.
Buddy number 1 is moving to B.C. He gives me his expensive draughting table [drafting to you guys.] I rub my hands together greedily. If I can't use it, I can sell it for about $200.00. It is the kind of table with the tilt top.
Buddy number 2., calls me and says that his wholesale contact is going to come over to look at some of my pots in the view to selling them at their resort. We had just unloaded the gas kiln, and I had some SWEET Shino glazed jars-carbon trap and everything. I unpack them in the garage, on you guessed it, the draughting table. I make sure I have tightened the top REALLY well. I place a bunch of jars and bowls on said slanty table. The table slanted the opposite way!Away from me! Crash, crash, crash.
I go in the house, get a broom and dust pan, and sweep the shards into a box.Then the wholesale couple arrives. I basically had a few mugs, and a red face. Needless to say, they bought a few things but not a repeat order.
Good thing I have the day job.
TJR.
I put the tippy draughting table in the back lane. Away it went.

[Benzine]

The latest mention of the Raku firing, reminded me of another one of mine.

I was doing a firing with students, and everything went pretty smooth. Each student had a job, and things went like clockwork. After everything had been loaded into the reduction bins, I noticed some of the crumpled paper, we use inside the bins was laying around, as a result of the students dumping them on top of the hot wares quickly. So, I thought instead of just tossing the paper in the trash or recycling, I'd use them for the reduction. So I gathered up the paper, and went to remove the reduction bin lid. Obviously, I didn't pay close enough attention, when watching the movie Backdraft. I only had to break the seal of the lid, because the newly revived fire, pushed the lid off the rest of the way, with a good puff of heat. Luckily, it wasn't too intense, and I just walked away with a lesson.


Also, in response to TJR's post, I had no idea there was another spelling of "drafting".

[TJR]

Benzine, on 25 February 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

The latest mention of the Raku firing, reminded me of another one of mine.

I was doing a firing with students, and everything went pretty smooth. Each student had a job, and things went like clockwork. After everything had been loaded into the reduction bins, I noticed some of the crumpled paper, we use inside the bins was laying around, as a result of the students dumping them on top of the hot wares quickly. So, I thought instead of just tossing the paper in the trash or recycling, I'd use them for the reduction. So I gathered up the paper, and went to remove the reduction bin lid. Obviously, I didn't pay close enough attention, when watching the movie Backdraft. I only had to break the seal of the lid, because the newly revived fire, pushed the lid off the rest of the way, with a good puff of heat. Luckily, it wasn't too intense, and I just walked away with a lesson.


Also, in response to TJR's post, I had no idea there was another spelling of "drafting".

Benzine;
I'm Canadian, remember. We use the queen's English, as does Australia, India, Bermuda, New Zealand, etc. We also spell centre like that, and colour with a "u". It's sometimes tough to maintain my culture as Windows spells everything the "American"way.
You are spelling it correctly for your country.
TJR.

[Benzine]

TJR, on 25 February 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

Benzine, on 25 February 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

The latest mention of the Raku firing, reminded me of another one of mine.

I was doing a firing with students, and everything went pretty smooth. Each student had a job, and things went like clockwork. After everything had been loaded into the reduction bins, I noticed some of the crumpled paper, we use inside the bins was laying around, as a result of the students dumping them on top of the hot wares quickly. So, I thought instead of just tossing the paper in the trash or recycling, I'd use them for the reduction. So I gathered up the paper, and went to remove the reduction bin lid. Obviously, I didn't pay close enough attention, when watching the movie Backdraft. I only had to break the seal of the lid, because the newly revived fire, pushed the lid off the rest of the way, with a good puff of heat. Luckily, it wasn't too intense, and I just walked away with a lesson.


Also, in response to TJR's post, I had no idea there was another spelling of "drafting".

Benzine;
I'm Canadian, remember. We use the queen's English, as does Australia, India, Bermuda, New Zealand, etc. We also spell centre like that, and colour with a "u". It's sometimes tough to maintain my culture as Windows spells everything the "American"way.
You are spelling it correctly for your country.
TJR.

Yes sir, I was aware that there are some differences of spelling, I just didn't know that drafting/ draughting, was one of them. Like many other spelling variations, the British versions sound far "fancier"

[Nelly]

Dear All,

Where to begin with my bonehead mistakes:

1. Putting way too much cobalt blue in a bucket of studio glaze
2. Picking up other peoples work without two hands when I worked in a cooperative studio
3. Backing a chair into a huge bowl that was bone dry
4. Putting a bunch of sodium silicate on a vase and causing serious blackening of a studio wheel head
5. Blowing into a peep hole using a furniture post-not realizing a backdraft could occur singe my eyelashes
6. Submerging a short upright soup type blender into a whole large bucket of glaze
7. Not marking on my bags the type of clay I am using
8. Not informing the electricians of my need for a main shut off switch for the garage where my kiln is fired (not sure this was my fault--I think they should have known when they installed the wiring)
9. Not putting holes in a sculpture for air escape in a Walter Ostrum course where all the students work was fired together
10. Putting red clay on a white porcelain board

I could go on and on and on...

Nellie

[timbo_heff]

Well I spent about 4 hours last night on a sort of complicated hand-built lidded box.
Woke up this morning and while waiting for the coffee to brew , started fiddling with it to make sure the lid fit nicely and I cracked the beautiful lid.
The next thing I thought was of this thread : "(expletive), you bonehead !"

LESSON LEARNED: Do nothing until the caffeine is in the bloodstream !

[Round2potter]

Timbo,

Oh my oh my! yes!!! i cant tell ya how many times i have mucked things up before i drank coffee, droped stuff, rammed vases against walls and shelves.........
Coffee First!

[Round2potter]

We unloaded the high-fire reduction kiln today, after i wrote that post, and the funniest thing happened, also tragic.

a very nice looking jar, with the most perfect glaze/brush stroke decoration.
I used wadding to hold a bunch of my lid up above the glazed interior, but this jar i thought would be alright.
Turns out that the lid shrank too much, as it was a little on the small side, and fell down into the pot; permanently glazed in place.

Oh well! i think i am going to keep using little coils of wadding on my lids from now on!
Besides my wadding is fun to work with, it has the consistency of corn starch and water (non neutonian solid or something like that).
THEN!!!!
When i took home my most favorite mug with my grandmothers secret "Shaner Red" glaze (she learned from him at the Bray before and in the first year he was director); a glaze which is finicky but was PERFECT ON THIS MUG.
Anyway, i rinsed it off and set it on the counter, bumped it with the coffee pot and BANG went the handle as it hit the floor.

AHHHH!!!

it is days like this that i have to remember the humble words of my first teacher Jack Walsh: "It's just mud".
I'll just have good excuse to make another one.

Keep breaking stuff and sealing lids forever, cheers!

[Benzine]

"It's just mud".

I like that.

[Mark C.]

Mixing up a 10,000 gram 5 gallon batch of glaze-studio phone rings-distraction and another batch of glaze is toast-sometimes it takes a glaze fire till this is noticed-then its glaze and pots that are toast. Now its let that dam phone ring .I'm mixing glaze. Took me many years to focus on zero glaze distractions.I could have a ingredient check list but I have fought that much organization in my life-Live by the sword die by the sword.
Mark

[OffCenter]

TJR, on 25 February 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

OffCenter, on 16 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

Round2potter, on 16 February 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

Cheers! lets all learn from each others mistakes!

Like how not to position a picture for your avatar?

Jim

Jim;
Is that what you look like?!!
TJR

TJR,
A year ago my wife and I had a show together (she paints). I'm the guy in the light brown jacket. http://vimeo.com/36383367
Jim

[Claypple]

OffCenter, on 02 March 2013 - 08:47 PM, said:

TJR, on 25 February 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

OffCenter, on 16 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

Round2potter, on 16 February 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

Cheers! lets all learn from each others mistakes!

Like how not to position a picture for your avatar?

Jim

Jim;
Is that what you look like?!!
TJR

TJR,
A year ago my wife and I had a show together (she paints). I'm the guy in the light brown jacket. http://vimeo.com/36383367
Jim

So, you are telling us it is not you on the avatar?! Darn...

[Isculpt]

My VERY FIRST firing was done with an electric kiln loaned to me by a friend. I had spent weeks on my first four sculptures, and they were touched with magic. Thanks to that mysterious thing called "Beginner's Luck", I had produced work that was way beyond my capability, every sculpture better than the next thirty sculptures that followed. Somehow, when my friend gave me instructions on operating the kiln, though, I missed the part about putting the cone in the cone holder....or I forgot to put it in.....or I did it wrong or....??! All I know is that after slowly raising the temperature per my friend's instructions, I turned the timer to its maximum of 12 hours, then turned the kiln to high and went to bed. (yeah, now I know better....!) The next morning, my husband went to our attached studio to open the kiln while I was brushing my teeth. He quickly returned, white faced, and while standing in the doorway to the bathroom, told me that all the sculptures had MELTED! Wordless, I slammed the bathroom door in his face, sat down on the floor ... and cried for three hours before going back to bed for the rest of the day. (I was -- shall we say -- a little too invested in those sculptures!) We ended up spending several hundred dollars replacing the elements, in addition to hours chipping melted clay off the walls and shelves.

That was three years ago. Muuuch smarter now, a few months ago I spent several days making a bust which I turned into a box by adding a bottom to it and cutting along the neckline to make a removable lid. The "lid" fit so perfectly that when it was together, you couldn't tell it was two separate pieces. I was REAL proud. When it was leather hard, I decided to take it to a "do your own thing" clay night at a local community center to "work on it" (actually I wanted to show it off). But I didn't want the piece to dry out too much before I finished touching up all the stamped patterns that decorated the "clothing" part of the box. Soooo I wrapped a wet cloth around it, set it carefully in a box, drove 20 miles to the center, and carried it in. I was all set to hear ooohs and ahhhhs when I reached into the box -- and pulled out a wet, soggy collection of unrecognizable clay parts. If that wasn't bone-headed enough, I then spent another two days trying to put it back together. And if that wasn't bone-headed enough, I spent the next week trying to make another one -- which failed - and then trying to make a third one which also failed. I have finally moved on to other things, but one of these days I'm gonna try again..... yep, BONE-headed.

[Mark McCombs]

In 1978 or 79, against the advice of my high school pottery teacher, I tried to throw a full bag of clay.
I struggled mightily trying to centre the clay using mostly lateral pressure.
The bat came off the pins and 25 pounds of fast spinning clay went crashing to the floor taking out the splash tray on the way.
I was in trouble. I think she made me finish my coil and pinch pot projects (which I neglected to do for most of the year) before allowing me to return to the wheel.

[rebbylicious]

Diane Puckett, on 14 February 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

Okay, I'll fess up. I took John Britt's glaze chemistry class. Five days of mixing glazes during the day and partying at night left me a bit befuddled. John said that we should lay everything out on a sheet of paper before mixing a glaze. It makes perfect sense now, but what I heard then was to literally lay all the glaze materials out on a sheet of paper before mixing them. So...I went back to my reasonably clean studio with newly-purchased glaze materials and large sheets of newsprint. I remember thinking that it seemed like a really stupid idea, but this was my first time mixing glazes alone, and I was determined to follow John's directions. I laid out the dry materials for the base glaze onto a couple sheets of newsprint, amazed at how much there was. The Kiln Goddess yelled at me from her perch, saying it was a dumb idea, that the paper would tear, but I remained stubborn in following directions. Well, just as I got the paper off the table and moving toward the bucket, the paper split in two, and the dry materials went everywhere. The mess was pretty impressive. Thankfully, I had not yet added colorants.

Lessons learned - Don't take on projects like mixing glazes when I am tired. Glaze mixing is best done outdoors on a calm day. The Kiln Goddess is always right.

BTW, I have seen almost no live bugs and so far no other critters inside my studio.

SOmething about the way you explain this makes me crack up hysterically! I am not a potter genius , and i am sure all of you would be rolling at the things i do in my studio- but this is soo funny!!

[rebbylicious]

TJR, on 14 February 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

The post about the artist who dumped wax resist on a kiln shelf got me thinking. What have you seen in your time either from yourself, students or colleagues that you would classify as a really dumb mistake. I know we have all done them.
I was the clay tech at my former art school. A student actually took an electric skill saw[circular saw], and while cutting a board, cut the end off the table. Not through the middle, just a foot off the end. When I asked him "why", he said; "I thought it was really tough going to cut that board."
I am attempting to go for humour here, as in Three Stooges. Not to humiliate anyone, so, no names please, just your own.
TJR.

LOL!!!! These are soo funny!!!