Post 1 - Growing bonsai - needing pots

In the beginning my bonsai were getting to a certain size and demanding something more than the community germnation trays they were largely growing in. While I have quite a few, the commercial choice of available pots has never been too inspiring and so the natural conclusion was to make my own. Well clearly I didn't understand!

Uncle Google helped of course and for a while I toyed with the idea of slipcasting but that seemed too factory like and a little artisanally impersonal. Lindsay Farr lead me to the Tokoname potter's plaster press mould technique which was much more tactile, more hands on and so in October 2010 I made my first mould and here it is freshly cast and still with a little of the template terracotta clay on the surface.
The pots come out of the mould in a raw state at about 450mm long. After final firing they shrink down to about 380mm.

This first design had quite sharp corners and integrated feet. Something I later changed as you will see.

My early cunning plan was to use a commercial firing service at $5 a kilo. This applied to both bisque and then glaze firing. The bigger the pot the bigger the cost but at that rate still too hard to justify a kiln. Perhaps. By the time you add costs of clay, glaze and firing, let alone plaster for moulds, and all the paraphernalia, those commercial pots from China were looking reallly cheap. But where's the challenge in that!