JTGJr25

Thank you Ash and Rick. I love this little pot and would hate if I couldn't use it. I'm glad it won't be a problem. Now I have to wait till next year to use it.

Tom

Ravenna

Hi Ashley,

just wondered about your theory: has a potter told you that? I guess you may save glaze if you use wax to cover the pot in certain areas but if you use tape or paper you simply have the glaze sticking to that esp. if you immerse. I am not sure of the prices for glazes: they don't seem to be all that high from what I pay in my class and I am not sure what would be cheaper: just to have glaze everywhere but save the time you need to cover the whole pot with wax or not.

Anyway: with other objects potters manage to sell them anyway "despite" having glaze everywhere so why would that be such a problem with bonsai pots? My teacher makes vessels for Ikebana and she doesn't for ex. try to keep the bottom of the vessel clear of glaze.

Well, I find your opinions interesting. One is sometimes too tempted to believe that others think there are the same reasons for something as oneself.

Ashley Barns

Hello Heike
The saving is not in the glaze but the time for these commercial potters. If you think about a bonsai pot it is only the areas that can be seen that require to be glazed. The reason for glazing pots is purely to enhance the tree within. A decorative compliment to the tree. Usually only the feet are left unglazed but not always.


Ash

Ravenna

Oh, okay... I wonder then how they do that then because for me one of the time intensive things to do while glazing is actually to STOP the glaze getting everywhere and hence covering the inner pot and the underside.

JLDoggett

In a commercial setting the pots would be glazed by dunking them into a vat of glaze. With the drain hole blocked by your finger, or something that fills the hole completely, the air is trapped inside as the pot is immersed rim first. This also explains why you often see a glaze line at the bottom of the pot, it is the level to which the pot was immersed.

This method makes the glazing fast and therefore saves money and glaze (which can be expensive to make in volume.)

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Ravenna

Thank you for the info Jim. Whenever I tried "dunking" I would have the glaze coming up higher on the inside than wished for so I covered things but then my teacher never suggested completely closing the holes - not sure how high it would rise on the inside then. May be I should try that one of these days...

JLDoggett

With the holes closed you get almost no glaze inside. The air pressure keeps the inside clear of glaze. Like trying to push a glass down into a sink full of water.

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"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these"

And I further resolve to click on an ad, each time I visit, to help support the site and to be welcoming to lurking guests when you join! After all, you're already here.

Joanie

Hi all! Long time no visit.

Stoneware and porcelain do not allow water or air to go all the way through the walls of the pot. The inside may be rough and give the impression that there is some porosity, but that is only skin-deep. Interestingly enough, there IS a Japanese Master potter who apparently uses wood flour mixed into his clay, which burns out and leaves enough gaps that the pots do 'breathe'.

Glaze inside the pot is just wasted, and it can also plug the smaller holes that are made for wire in some of the better pots. Also, potters recognize that the inside being unglazed makes people happier. The rough surface may or may not promote root growth or 'grabbing', but people like the insides unglazed. Pot feet or bottom rims are unglazed because that way they don't stick to the kiln shelf. If you want to glaze the feet, you can either wipe the glaze off lower, or you can stilt the pot by lifting it up on wire stilts which keep it off the kiln shelf. Some glazes are so runny that if you glazed the feet, it would form a big drip on the bottom of each foot, and the pot would not stand right. Depends upon the glaze.

Terra cotta and earthenware pots do 'breathe' in a sense, but the air is not the important part. The top surface of the soil can breathe much easier than through the pot walls! The real exchange in earthen and terra cotta, is water. Water is wicked (as in, oil wick) outward and evaporates on the surface if the pot is unglazed. Ancient people used this principle to cool their drinking water. The water pots would constantly conduct water to the outside, which would evaporate and cool the pot walls, just like we sweat. The wicking effect can be useful, then again, an earthen or terra cotta pot will dry out very quickly in the hot sun.

Joanie

Phil

Hi Joanie! Glad to see you found your way here for a visit.
Hope you were not taken aback by the delay in getting approved.
I had to resort to administrative approval for all new members due to the tremendous influx of spammers trying to access the site.

~Phil

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