Trim talk ! May 27th 2021 with Simon Leach

[Applause] beautiful day beautiful evening it is the 27th of may just here the close of the day just uh been trimming off some tea bowls here as you can see got a few more to do then i'll be moving on making some more bud vases let's do it [Applause] [Music] so here we go just set up here on the wheel just by the door here and see if we can get that there focus where we need to be i think that's about it all right greetings everyone greetings so yeah these you saw me in the last video you saw me um wet paddling these and just going to just trim them how do we do that well just dab the wheel head like that don't make it too wet then just damp the the rim put it face down one finger there and then tap center there it is now some downward pressure take a trim tool and we're going to cut sort of down an angle like that there and now i'm going to go in there like that dtd let's stick a bit more light on the subject even oh why doesn't that work now look at that plug him in there can't do can't do this kind of thing with bad light can he so right here so they're like that now what i do is uh from the cut-off wire there i generally i generally get rid of that just like that and now i start carving cutting there [Applause] [Applause] so you see the hands and the tool work together now he's gone off center there now that's all right i don't mind if that happens gives me a chance to pick it up and have a look at it so it's it's a convenient it's almost convenient if it does okay just tap center [Music] down pressure pressure yep that'll do [Applause] that will do indeed right where's my seal box get my seal so sometimes if these this particular one is just a little on the hard side just dip your wet your finger put it there where you're going to put the seal just for 20 seconds before you seal it take your seal and then with your finger your longest finger right at the very bottom bottom there right opposite where you're going to push the seal okay not a bad idea because you don't know necessarily how much pressure to give it you know if he's a little on the stiff side as well then if you give too much pressure you could just push through can you [Applause] when we do done that we just re-center him up [Applause] now if he's visually obviously a little bit bent out of shape i we'll just squeeze him what i'm going to do now is just using the trim tool here and my finger right like that lightly very lightly skimming just that that top bit that's it a little bit more water use your fingertips now just like this round it make it nice you know because if it's been face down it can get a rather sort of flattened look to the the lip which i don't like let's check that one out let's check him out okay so so you have to decide for yourself what you like in terms of the width of the foot here how it how it kind of how it visually looks compared to the the rest of the of the t-ball you know um the narrower the narrower you have the foot uh it gives it more sort of elegance but it gets to a point where it gets too much and then it looks doesn't look right so another thing to notice is there is a bevel on the edge of the trimmed foot there never leave a sharp edge it doesn't look nice it's not user friendly on furniture tops and um it's it more easily prone to chipping if you take the edge off and put a chamfer there a bevel on the corner it will make it stronger a broken corner is always stronger than a sharp corner a sharp corner is just going to chip okay here's another one this one is a little softer let's let's do this guy [Music] so yeah learn to tap center it's it's kind of it's vitally important that you learn how to do it i mean you will learn how to tap something center if you make enough pots just by [Applause] necessity you will not be far-assing around with a contraption you know these trying to locate it because so it's so slow okay in there like that and now the foot the [Music] cut like that there now yeah farting around pardon my french but you know what i mean [Applause] now i'm gonna it'll probably loosen himself off the wheel head now in a second unless i stuck him down rather well which i might have done of course okay so these tools are kind of good because they've got the cutting edge of the tool i don't know if you can see it but the cutting edge of the tool goes around the corner here you see same on this end it cuts all the way from there all the way around the corner which is um is useful actually all right there it is bravo right again now seal finger underneath let's just put him here if he's obviously out of round just straighten tap center okay now like this this is real skimming i'm not trimming the lip i'm just skimming it [Applause] there he is okay we've got another one here this one this one is done with that other paddle with this paddle you saw me i i got a few more i've got some over there which i did with that butter okay just damp that damp that okay [Applause] there he is so you're going to learn to train you want to learn to train your eye um [Applause] now he's lost he's come off okay let's have a quick look yeah all right yeah yeah yeah yeah [Applause] learn to train your eyes so that you can your eye will tell you whether you're on center or not it might it might seem it might seem a bit mysterious but i can assure you that it's it's not and that you will i'll tell you what this is not ideal conditions for because the sun is coming in i'm not feeling like i'm getting enough light to see what i'm doing over there quite i'm looking in my mirror though my mirror my trusty friend he's telling me you're doing all right simon don't worry about it okay [Applause] yeah okay [Applause] so [Applause] oh it came off [Applause] if you have a t-bowl that is has an uh let's say like you know like an undulating top which sometimes they do mine don't generally have that so much mine are usually just fairly straight across the top but some of them are you know you look at a lot of japanese tea bowls they're kind of like very wavy you know seven mountains well of course if you're trying to get that to stick to the wheel head you'll find it quite difficult because the points of contact are not enough to adhere it with that kind of trimming you you want to have a have a raised thrown raised as it were like a stem you know which actually locates right down right down in the on the base of the pot so he's like that you know on a stem that's just another way another way of doing it i like i i quite like sometimes that that's a oh it's come off again simon this is getting embarrassing [Applause] it's all right it's good to be embarrassed isn't it doesn't hurt yeah occasionally you will get a pot or tea bowl this method this method that i'm i am yeah i can see he's not quite sticking there and that's causing him to be to have some slippage [Applause] [Applause] a little slippage that'll do right now because this one have all that went on with all that slipping and having to re-wet it and put it back down again etc so i'll show you what the lip the this is going to come out in the video or not but here you you may see it's it's got some flattened kind of flattened a little bit of a flattened edge which is not nice i don't like that so that's why i um that's why i put it back so now this one is also a little bit overlated ovulated okay so now i'm going to carefully you notice how i'm doing this this hand okay is here to you know it's the just in case hand just in case he comes off so i've got that hand there and i'm just very lightly with this tool just dressing the edge dressing the edge yeah addressing the edge okay just [Applause] let's get a couple more we've got a couple more here this is the one i did with a a this guy so let's do him [Applause] so some of you if you're if you're new to my channel [Applause] maybe you're new to pottery and you didn't know that you could trim like this like i'm doing it you thought oh i've got to get all these lumps of clay i've got a stick lumps of clay here and i tell you that's the biggest hassle because when you when you do that when you do that you all your trimmings fall down onto the wet soft clay stick to the soft clay and it becomes somewhat over a pain the whole thing [Applause] anybody can anybody identify with that you see if you get the if you create the right the right conditions between the the lip of the pot and the wheel head uh you'll find that the pot will most of the time most of the time as a as you saw in the last in the last with the last pot i did you saw how many times it kicked coming off you know occasionally you get one like that but for if the if you're dealing with a pot that's got a a a lip that is sort of flat you know and it'll just it'll stick down onto the wheel head you've got to create the right condition so if it's too dry it won't adhere if it's too wet it'll slip around so you have to sort of hit the sweet spot where it's it could create a kind of tackiness between the clay and the wheel head in it and it sticks now quite a few people in the last video made some comment about oh simon simon's changed his clay it's a little more gray well you'll see in this one i haven't actually changed my clay but this is recycled clay i don't know if we'll pick the camera will pick it up but you can see here there's a little bit of a line different this portion here is slightly redder whereas this portion here where i've cut into it with the trim tool is is more gray here that's because um let's just come over here to the bench second and i can show you more exactly hang about trying to do this one-handed let me just stick the camera down here you'll probably be in the picture more or less um so i've cut through uh of course that one doesn't isn't demonstrating what i want to show you so if you do if you do do your own clay recycling okay yeah this this shows it nicely okay so if you do do your own clay recycling you will come across what i'm about to show you and that is so you see that clay i've just cut through you see the gray streaks in the clay that is that is what is causing the clay to take on a gray a gray look and that is because the clay has been recycled and it's been sitting in a bucket and is rotted it's rotten rotting clay takes goes a dark color like that okay that's why okay but there's nothing there's not this is not a different clay or anything like that i haven't changed nothing it's just that the clay is it is recycled and a little bit a bit rotted and it stinks you ever put your nut i mean sometimes if you go down into my into my bucket here let's do it and have a look oh gosh oh now i don't know if you can notice this clay here i'm pulling out of here can you see that's great it's got a grayness to it because it's been sitting down whatever it's been sitting down at the bottom of my throwing bucket here and it's taken on that gray that gray look okay all right we answer that question now i got to wipe my hand touch uh yeah just gotta finish this guy haven't we uh yeah you want yeah i encourage you recycle your own clay you know some people they throw pots and all the all this trimmings and everything you know just throw it away just throw it away well i don't like doing i like to recycle it i know it takes a bit of time so what kind of feels better than throwing it away that would just not give me a good feeling okay there he is let's put let's put a seal on him so here's the thing when you're when you apply a seal let's just talk about that for two seconds um when you apply a seal to the bottom of a pot number one try to have your hand opposite inside where where you're going to seal it and take the seal apply the seal don't just push it like that what you want to do is apply some gentle pressure okay and as you do it you see how i'm doing that i'm i'm wiggling it left and right twisting it a little bit left and right okay with a little bit of pressure and if you do that you'll find you'll get a good a good imprint that's not a bad little tip for you okay now because i was manhandling it they're doing all that you see this one's been out of shape uh this one was a little softer so that's a that's a an instance where and what we could do of course is um use a rounder if you have a rounder i use this one generally on my tankers it might fit yeah it does so you could use this just with a gentle pressure now okay don't don't put any force to it like that before now we're just gonna re-center him back on the wheel like that bring this hand in okay the just in case hand and now just lightly very lightly there on there [Applause] yeah this is a good this is a good a good game to learn how to catch isn't it all right okay there he is he's done whoa well we've got one more to do let's do that one this one this one doesn't have any paddle this one is just plain this one will be just for uh just decorating it with glazing and decorating you know with my my pigment pigments so this one will just have some brush decoration let's quickly do this guy so we do a cut like that at an angle and now i come in at this angle i particularly like my feet to be [Applause] a little bit cut in you know [Applause] now the best way to do these these these t-bolt t-balls in my opinion is do them fairly fast and i know that if you're not if you're new to trimming that's that's maybe a little bit of a tall order but you know generally pots are better if they're made a little bit on the quick side they're not over overly dwelt upon if you know what i mean not overly thought about too much you you sort of like as i say you know that that comes with that does come with with uh with practice and a sort of sort of an unconscious way that you go about making them it's it's kind of quick and as you see i'm doing with this one there's not much there's not much fat is there all right he's done he's done so i'm applying the seal a little bit of that you know like this you push and then you you want to go like that a little bit it will help you to get the to get the impression of the seal into the clay which is what we want okay just yeah this one looks pretty round so just in case hand here and now just very lightly there like that a little bit of water and there he is another one bites the dust okay you

Channel: Simon Leach

Views: 2,301

Rating: 4.949367 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: OUDh0PIF29s

Length: 29min 42sec (1782 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021