Hello John I love your instructions- best I have found for solving all those little issues that other potters forget to tell a learner potters. I also like that you are left handed- much easier for me to understand how you are doing something without contorting myself around to mirror image the hand postions etc and take into account the way the wheel is spinning as I was taught to throw right handed and not until I got into very detailed trimming did I strike problems. Tried to reverse wheel but oh what a mess 😂 Thanks again John, you’re a great teacher! BTW - is your mum the hilarious potter on Instagram - you both have similar expressions 😂
I just found John and love these videos. I love the constant explanation and I especially love showing the problems and how to correct them! So many instructional videos edit out the “mistakes” so they make it look perfect and easy..but the fun of clay is the constant challenge of the “oops” moments and overcoming them! Thank you!!!
Thank you. Yes, I keep in all the mistakes and goofs and show you how to deal with them in real time. There is almost no editing or cut out scenes in the videos. I am so happy you enjoyed them.
Hi John! I've been catching up on your videos recently. They are very thorough and I appreciate the effort you go into your explanations. This time I noticed you mentioning tap centering. I spent literally months of time practicing and it was only recently when something clicked and I realized how the physics of it actually works. It was then that I finally started mastering the technique. At first, I thought the point was to hit the piece being centered with an exact amount of force so that it lands in the right center spot on the wheel. I marveled at how potters seemed to do this by apparent feel or muscle memory. But that's not what is really going on at all. For anyone who has struggled with tap centering, hear me out. Think back to watching Olympic figure skaters. They make a lot of use out of centrifugal forces. For example, drawing their arms in during a spin effects their rotation speed. Now this is just an analogy to consider with regard to wheel rotation. Tap centering makes use of the same centrifugal forces. The idea is your wheel spinning will guide the piece to true center, not necessarily the tapping itself. The more important skill you are mastering is the timing of the taps, because you're trying to get centrifugal forces to whip the piece towards the center as it turns. That's why when it's done correctly the centered piece seems to just instantly stop in the correct spot. Anyhow, this concept is very difficult to articulate so I hope I've made sense and it helps people who are struggling to tap center. Keep trying, you will get there. The hours spent practicing is worth it, too, just in how much time you save later trying to center with a needle tool.
Thank you. I've been studying this effect for some time now and have realized additional insights about it. A tap done at the perfect time means you are hitting the pot when it is at its most off-center point in the rotation. That is key. At exactly that moment the tap will be aligned at 90° to the wheel's rotation, or dead center on the wheel. If you miss the timing then your tap pushes the pot in a different angle, so in other words it goes away from center. The tap forces a quick lateral movement while the pot is already spinning. Like the Olympic skaters mentioned before, this movement towards the center of the wheel briefly increases the pot's rotation speed relative to the wheel's speed. Then centrifugal forces reorient the pot to the exact center. Perfect tap timing makes it happens automatically. But if your timing is off then the angle alters this increase in spin effect, sometimes to the point it throws your pots right off the wheelhead. A tap off center pushes the pot towards the outer part of the wheelhead and it wants to fly off at the point where lateral momentum is greater than rotational momentum. Perhaps this is why the technique seems easier to do when the wheel spins faster. Also, sure would be a lot simpler to draw out my explanation than type it. I find the concept difficult to put into the right words. So I hope it's making sense.
Question: If I trim the pot like this and level out the bottom while the pot isn't stuck at level, wouldn't that mean that the pot will stoop to one side after I turn it back around?
