Trimming the Clay of Pottery Bowls

Video Transcript

"The last step in getting this soft bowl off the wheel is trimming the bottom a little bit with this wooden knife tool and the knife tool is pretty much you would use as a exacto knife so the blade would cut the surface of the clay like that. So you are kind of holding it like a pencil. Now I'm going to put the wheel on very slowly and the knife is going to enter the clay just like that and it is going to cut off some of the wet clay that is there. Then I'm going to take a little bit of water and drizzle it down that knife tool right between the clay that I cut in the pot. That is going to keep it from sticking when I try to peel it off. Again I hold this like a pencil, cut into it, turn the wheel on a little and the clay just gathers and it would come right off the pot. Okay then I'm going to take my sponge and just wipe a little bit of this of water off. Then I take this wire tool, this wire tool is pretty much like just it can be like a old guitar string or you know these are specialty wire which they sale at the ceramic supply shops. We are going to take this wire and you are going to start out like this with our hands and pull and then you are going to put your thumbs down and put it on the bat. As you pull this across you have to make sure that this wire is tight, that your thumbs stay down and you just pull it right across. Then wipe down the tool. It is important to keep the tools fairly clean so it don't create a lot of dust. Now I'm going to lift this pot off the wheel and I'm going to put it on a board right next to me. Then that pot will dry for maybe a day or two it depends what the weather is like and then I go on to the next step which is called trimming a foot. "