Ceramic Covered Jar Lid Trimming

Video Transcript

"Once the lid is turned over, on the bat and centered, then you can anchor it down with three pieces of moist clay. You can just hold on with your left hand, so it remains stationary, the lid, and put the clay up against the outer edge of the lid. Two pieces are not enough, four pieces of clay are too much, so three pieces of clay, moist clay, works fine. Using a trimming tool, you can begin to take off excess clay. Again, at this stage, getting the wheel going fast will give you more control. We're just taking off a little bit of clay at a time. If it's the right moisture content for trimming, the clay should come off as a ribbon. If you've waited too long and the piece is dry, the clay would come off as a very dusty powder. If you have not waited long enough, the ribbon of clay will come off but it will stick to itself and the piece will be easily deformed. What I'm doing is just tracing that curve I threw, on the opposite side of the lid. With this operation it's always best to take off a little bit of clay at a time. One of the questions that always comes up is "when do you stop trimming?." A beginning student might trim to the point of going through the piece, however, what you can do, periodically, is stop the wheel, lightly press down and see if there's any give to the clay, if there is, it's time to stop trimming."