Post #784257 by danlovestikis on Fri, Feb 23, 2018 7:29 AM

hang10tiki I think Mike would laugh and take acceptation to your comment!

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The mold for the Sacramento Crawl mug is finished and it is time to pour the first volcano mug.

The straps have been placed to hold all the pieces together. Dan is about to pour in the slip and I'm going to pound the mold so that there will not be any trapped air bubbles. Air Bubbles can crack your mug when it fires.

Another good way to prevent trapping air is to pour it in slowly.

Once he gets it to the top he can pour faster just to fill up the large opening. I made this large area to hold slip so that I don't have to top it off as water is sucked out by the mold. I want the entire volcano to be the same thickness so the slip level must always be higher than the sides of the mug.

I have little clay dams at the sides where the mold pieces come together. They didn't meet up well at the top. I fix that with a bit of clay.

After on hour it has lowered this much. I keep the slip in this mug for three hours. My mugs are thick and heavy and meant to last.

When Dan pours out the excess slip he is careful not to fill up the entire opening. If it fills it makes a suction that collapses the mug inside. I call that the glug glug because that's what you hear if it starts. So it's good to have someone watching when you lower the heavy mold.

For this thick mug I will leave the mold upside down for at least four hours before I open it.

This is when the fun begins. We try to do one mug every day when we will be home for those hours of pouring to emptying.

Thank you for watching, Wendy