Kettle-Style Pottery: Torching the Dome

Video Transcript

"So I'm not going to torch this for a long period of time but I do want to get it a little more dry so I'm going to turn on my torch and then I'm going to spin the wheel, and hold the flame right directly up to the spinning pot. It's important not to keep the flame in one place for too long; the spinning helps that significantly but you also want to move the torch up and down the body of the pot. Now I'm only trying to dry this up a little bit; I just want it to be slightly more firm so that as I push that upper part of the wall in towards the center it'll be a little bit more supported and less likely to fall into itself. Having a self light torch can be helpful too; that way you don't always have the lighter nearby. So once you've got this pot just slightly firmed up you can go ahead and move on and collar it in the rest of the way, and make the ridge for the lid to sit."