How to Open Clay on the Pottery Wheel

Video Transcript

"Alright now that we got our thumb plunge right there we're ready to go. And with this you want to be careful because we're not going to be doing any trimming to this; we're going to make it so it's ready just to go right off the bat. So you just want to plunge down like that just a little bit o.k.; get it down to where you want it, where you feel comfortable. And go ahead at this point you want to check it; still a little thick down there so you just want to get a sponge and start pulling it out like that. If it starts getting funny on you on the outside don't worry about it, Go ahead and check the thickness again; that's good because I'm going to keep going back and compressing that bottom once I get it to the width that I desire. So right now I'm just concerned with pulling this out; I'm going to make a rather small one. I'm just going to even up those walls and at this point we want to go and focus on the compressing the bottom here, and making sure it's nice and sturdy."