Glamis Road Allotment footring

Glamis Road Allotment clay plate making

Crail Beach clay plate footring

The base of the plate is now dry enough, after two days, to have the footring added without collapsing.

Drying the base of Crail clay plates

The rims of plates tend to dry out first and so shrink slightly, hich causes them to rise up a little. In order to get the middle of the plate to catch up with the drying rim, I flip the plates over and put a dry bat (the disk potters throw on) on top and then flip the plates back over again. The dry bat draws out some of the moisture in the base.

Footring on a Pittormie thrown plate

This is the plate I have been most nervous of because the clay was very difficult to work, which is, of course, no reflection on the quality of the farm! I realise now I could have sieved the clay quite a bit more, and this would have made the proportion of clay higher in this mix. Still, I discovered that throwing is a superior way of making plates than press moulding, because it keeps the clay body compressed as it shapes it, while rolling clay stretches it out, breaking the microscopic joins that gives clay it's remarkable plastic quality.

A good day's work

Both of these clays were lovely to use.

Plate making with Reekies Garage clay

"Tesco" is the working name I gave this clay, because the clay came from the site where a new Tesco is to be built.

Plate making with Crail clay

Attaching a footring to a thrown Clephanton plate

Pittormie clay plate

Throwing a plate with Pittormie clay.

Flattening plate rims

As clay dries it shrinks (hence the cracking you get in dried out muddy fields). In pot making the outer extremities dry first and in the case of plates, that means the rim. So the outer rim gets smaller in relation to the rest of the plate, meaning it rises up. If necessary, I put the plate back on the wheel and flatten it down a little, otherwise the plate starts to resemble a bowl...

Throwing a plate using Clentrie clay

Most people throw flat objects on bats which are removable wheel heads. They can be made of wood and wood products, fired clay, plaster and are attached toe the permanent wheel head in various ways. In my case I use a disk of clay with knuckles pressed in. The bats, made of chipboard, are centred on top of the disk and then thumped to stick it to the clay.

Throwing plates

With all the cracking of the plates using the moulds, I decide to throw the plates as I think they will be stronger. The compression of the clay in the throwing process makes the clay more compact, tighter and stronger. The use of the mould was really to get a consistent plate shape, so that the variation in the plates came as a result of the clay itself and less so in the variations inherent in throwing. So here goes...