Post 16 Prepared pots

I've selected the glaze recipes I want to use on the next batch of pots from the shortlist of Post 14 and have been preparing. The mixtures are all mixed and ready to use. Today's job was final pot preparation. That involved running over them with sandpaper to smooth any rough spots and take the sharp edges off the top flange profile.
To keep the glaze away from where you don't want it to go the most usual method you see is to use a wax resist material which then burns off in the glaze firing. This is most suited to dip glazing. With the size of these pots, around 430 to 450mm, dipping would demand glaze in industrial quantities and would preclude running more than a couple of recipes at once. So I'm still brush applying the glaze and while the process has some wrinkles it will do for now. I would really like to get to spray application but that demands another package of infrastructure.

So that's a long way of getting to the preparation step of masking. As you can see from the picture I am using ordinary old masking tape from the hardware shop. It works fine and I just peel it off before firing. I like to run the glaze over to the inside surface at the top and so the ring of tape on the inside is to give a neat edge on the inside. While it is possible to carefully edge (paint) glaze around the feet it's just as easy to mask them too so there is no cleanup to do, and you get a good clean edge.
I can only fit four pots at a time in the kiln so a couple of firings are coming up, but first I've got some glazing to do.