Post 9 The big oval pot

In Post 7 I covered the making of a new mould - which is quite a deep oval. It took a couple of weeks for the mould to finally dry and now I've pulled the first stoneware pot. The clay has a little iron in it so at this stage has a pink tone but will finally fire to a buff brown. You can see the colour in the pots of Post 5.
In this picture it is very close to bone dry and has already shrunk about 4%.  For those into the detail, at this point it is about 455 x 340 x 108. I think it will finish up after the final firing at about 420x320x100. 

In the conditions that prevail here I like to have a little more than the minimum potting medium for my trees to help them retain some moisture through the summer days, so am quite happy to have the deeper pot. Using the same mould I'll also be able to turn out more shallow pots as well as be able to apply surface profiling after they are pulled.

This is pot number 14. With an oval pot the drying stresses are better spread giving better stability or at least less noticeable distortion. Now I need to get on and make another 3 or 4 to fill the kiln for a bisque fire.

With this post the history has been covered and the blog is up to date. Tomorrow I'm going to have a glaze run to fire those test tiles from Post 8.