Hi! I’m Jane Cullum from Manassas Clay and I’m showing how to make a pot on a wheel. Now to turn this cylinder into a mug, we need to add a handle. In fact, I’ll show two ways to make a handle.
First of all, you want to add a handle to leather hard clay. If it’s too dry, the handle won’t stick. If it’s too wet, the clay will distort and the mug will be lump sided. So this is my leather hard cylinder and I’m going to pull the first handle. This is a very old style of handles and then you’re going to slap the clay into a long tube. And then I’m going to turn off the wheel and put my bucket up here where I can reach it. And you hold the top and then wet your hand and make a circle, and pull down, turn it 180 degrees, pull down, pull down, pull down and you keep turning and pulling down to you. Tease the clay down into a nice strip. After it’s elongated, I’m going to run my thumb down the middle, give it a 180 degree turn; thumb down the middle, another turn.
So this looks about the right size to put on the mug. Now it needs to sit up for about 20 minutes until it’s no longer sticky before you can attach it. I just happen to have another one over here. So I will go ahead and attach this one. So this one is not sticky and shiny anymore and I’m going to attach that to my mug.
Now you have to prepare the mug and we do the slipping and scoring method. I mean I’m going to scratch and score where the handle attaches and then put thick—slip over that spot.
Next, I’m going to cut a bevel cut here and kind of clean up the cut area, and take the handle and put that bevel cut up against the side. Now with my fingers on the inside, I can push down pretty firmly and attach it that way. After it’s been attached and you’re pleased with the attachment, you can go ahead and bend it, and attach the other side. I’m going to slip my hand in here and push down. Then cut off the extra, clean it up a bit. And then I’m going to take my thumb and put a thumb print right here at the base.
Now you can look at the handle and adjust it for shape and I want it big enough that you can get three fingers in it because it’s a big mug. You need to be able to hold it when you’re drinking your hot coffee out of it. So that’s the size. Now look at it from the top to make sure the handle is coming out at a 90 degree angle and there you have the first handle. Now, pulling a handle like that takes a little practice and there are several simpler to do it. And I’m going to show you one that works really well.
We’re going to start out with a coil and just roll it out on my bat. When I’m making coils, I usually roll them out on plastic so that I don’t lose any moisture. You want it to be nice and flexible. I want it slightly tapering and then you pick out the best side that looks pretty good. Pick it up and drop it. I need my dowel and what I’m going to do is press this in the top of the clay. That makes a nice groove, like that. Then you can kind of check it out. Smooth it and I wan to make that same bevel cut that I made with the other one. Okay, I’m going to tape my second, one here and do the slipping and scoring. Pick it by the narrow end and you attach it from the back then hold on the inside. And then bend it over, cut off any excess, and I’m going to put that same thumb print in the bottom and then check the line. And there I have a nice big handle for a big mug.
Now we’re ready to let the pots dry until they’re bone-dry and then we can put them in a kiln.
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