One way to avoid drying cracks on handle-joins of engobed mugs


Friday 7th July 2017

The insight-live.com/glossary/195">foot ring on these leather-hard mugs has already been trimmed. At the stiff-leather-hard stage an engobe was applied to the inside. This rewets the bodies of the mugs, almost to the same point as freshly-thrown. But the handles did not get rewetted. To re-dry these mugs to the point of being able to turn them over will take 4-6 more hours. But by that time the handles will be too dry. To prevent that I wax them after trimming (leaving a just the inside handle-curves bare). That slows their drying down enough to keep them even with the body of the mug. This method works well enough that none of my mugs need covering during drying, even in our desert climate. Keeping all parts of a piece at the same water content throughout the process, that is a key to successful drying.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Wax Emulsion, L3954B - Cone 6 Engobe (for M340), A step to prevent cracking at handle-joins on thrown mugs, Drying Performance, Drying Crack, Engobe


This post is one of thousands found in the Digitalfire Reference Database. Most are part of a timeline maintained by Tony Hansen. You can search that timeline on the home page of digitalfire.com.