171. Throwing a Thin Wall 4-lb Bowl with Hsin-Chuen Lin 林新春 四磅大碗拉坯示範

Okay, today I'm going to throw a four pound ball that the wall is very thin. Try to throw something that is thin wall. So usually, before you start it, you might want to make sure that you place your clay right in the center. Especially if you are a beginner, that way it will save you some effort trying to push clay around. So I'm just using water from my ball here to make some mark. Or if you have pencil, you can use the pencil to draw some circles so that you have some kind of guide to know where to put your clay. I don't recommend you just slam your clay right on the bed because, you know, it's very hard to find. It's very center. So you try to get some mark and then just put it in the center and try to use your hand to pound it. It does the same thing as you slam so the clay sticks on the bed. But this way it will be more accurate for you to try to put the clay into the middle, into the center. Okay, so you see that my clay is quite in the center so I will have a little bit less effort trying to push the clay around the center. The very first one, I usually like to get the corner here using my right fingers to hold it there and then push down so the clay sticks on the bed. And you don't need to squeeze the clay sky high as long as you're squeezing the clay. And then see that my right arm is right there to find the support. So while I'm pushing the clay down, the right hand is doing the job to stop the clay from wobbling or getting too wide, especially on the bottom corner. So my right hand is holding right there while I'm pushing the clay down. It's centering. I usually flatten the top and then I'm ready to open the hole. For opening the hole, I usually use my thumb. I use my right thumb to dig in the hole. And I don't use my thumb all the way. My right thumb is just opening a small opening. Later on, I'm going to use my left hand to to the open to really squeeze it down. So I'm using my whole fingers to dig it in the middle from the middle. And then usually I will have my left thumb hanging on the outside. So while I'm digging in, I'm still centering. I'm still grabbing the wall. And also the right hand could be there to support it. So dig it in. And you want to dig in all the way to the right thickness. I would say about a quarter of an inch, depending on how tall you want your foot to be. Maybe a little bit more than a quarter of an inch. So you dig it all the way down and then you start to bring the clay out to the side. And remember when you are making a bowl, you want to open up a little bit differently. Like a vase. Because for the vase, you will get to the 90 degrees on the bottom. But for making a bowl, you want to have a little bit shallow here. A little bit of curve here. I'm kind of squeezing the clay a little bit more in so that I will have a smaller foot. And then I'll open gradually. I'm just doing the very first pinch. A pinch from the bottom corner and try to lift the clay. Kind of move it up. Move it out but a little bit more up. Later on, it will be easier for you if you want to open it wider. It's easier to stretch it. So you want to get the height first. I pinch using my left thumb. And my right hand is just holding it to stabilize it. Basically, it's the pinching job from my left hand. And remember to get the wall lubricate by adding a little bit of water, a little bit of slip. So I'm pinching the lubricate. And now my left thumb is too short to reach the very bottom. So this time I'm going to use my right thumb to replace it. But I still want to do the same pinch and as you see that my wheel speed isn't very fast. So when your wheel is not going very fast, you could move your hand, move your fingers slowly. One more time. Right thumb is squeezing the clay in and bring the clay slowly, very steady and compress. So I told you that you want to get the bowl higher and then later on you could stretch it easier. So put the slip back to work. A bit of water on the inside. This time I'm going to stretch it a bit more. Okay, I think the height is good enough. Now I'm going to stretch it. So I'm going to use my my rib on the outside to guide the clay and then my inside finger is on the inside. Pushing the wall slightly against the rim and slightly push it outward to stretch it. Like I told you that it's easier to stretch it out. So that's why I bring it higher first and then now I'm all I do is just stretching it and making the shape. Make sure the shape is nice. Okay, now I'm going to trim the unnecessarily clay at the bottom corner. Okay, now the outside has been taken care of. But actually I care more of the inside than the outside. So I will use a rib to try to smooth the inside and also get a nicer curve on the inside too. And here there's a little wooden rib. I think it's very useful especially pushing on the inside center part. I add water to my rib and then slowly compress on the inside. So I like this rib because it can tip over so that you will have many different kind of curves. Start from this very sharp curve but if you tip over then you have many different curves. That fits very nicely on the inside of the bottom. I compress the inside bottom and then I'm going to use the metal rib to refine the surface on the inside. So I usually after I compress using the wooden rib at the final stage, I would use the metal rib to smooth the inside. So what I do is I'm going to bend my rib and make sure your rib doesn't stay in there straight. It's going to go a bit sideways. So you want to use the smooth part, not the edge of the metal rib, not the edge. You want to use a smooth part to smooth it. So you bend the rib slowly. Okay maybe let me change the angle so that you will be able to see how. Okay this is the inside look. I want to show you how I hold my metal rib on the inside. So I'm bending my rib and try to use this part, the underneath part, not holding the straight one. You want to bend it and then lay it down. The curve will be right there using my metal rib to compress to smooth the wall. And like I said, if you want to increase the size, the diameter, just stretch from the inside and make it go out. So that's how I clean up the inside curve. And remember when you're using the metal rib, you will not close over the very center part because it's against the direction of the wheel. You want to go maybe a quarter of an inch or one-eighth of an inch away from the very center. After that, you just take care of the rim. I'm going to use the chamois to hold it right there using my two fingers, two fingers, the index finger. Kind of compressed the rubber around it and then compressed it. You can squeeze it so that your rim is getting a bit thinner. This is about four pounds of clay. The wall is getting thin. Okay this is the finished one. Again it's about four pounds of porcelain. I told you that I care more about the inside curve. I want it to be nice and smooth because when you're using a bowl all the people look at first is the inside of the bowl. So the inside has to be a nice curve that I consider a nice bowl. Yeah this is quite a thin here already and later on I could trim. If the outside is not as smooth as the inside, that's okay. I consider more the inside. I care more about the inside. So later on you can just trim. Use a trimming method to get a nicer curve on the outside. And also people ask me, you know, when you make something large or something wide or something like this, how do you remove it from the wheel? It should be easy as long as you have a bed right here. Like here I have a little bed here and I place it on the wheel head and after I finish I just go underneath and just pick up the whole bed and then I can make another one. So this is how I make a wider bowl on a bed and remove it. Okay thanks.