This should be made into a regular series. Even if it's not talking about making stuff on the pottery wheel. You could sit there and make stuff while just talking about random 17th/18th century general life. I'd love to watch a series like that
@@Noctuloquor you mean where you have to pay $10 a monthly/$100 yearly for a subscription. That "Townsend Plus"? I was commenting it for here. Not something I have to pay for.
John, you mentioned that they would use waste cooking grease, but I would love to see how to safely use one of these (fuel selection, filling, and lighting.) Great tutorial on a staple home item!
I third! I loved that not only did you explain a vital tool that we are no longer familiar with, but you made one the way they would have! I agree. Id love to see how to safely use it without burning my house down! Loved this.
A little pottery vocabulary… Scratching the clay where you want to attach another piece is called “scoring”. The clay slime you use to stick pieces together is called “slip”. Another enjoyable Townsends video.
As for candles: most people today think that 'snuffing' a candle means to put it out. Before the mid 19th century, it meant to trim the wick so that it *wouldn't* go out. Pope, in his _Peri Bathous_ , rephrases the command, 'snuff the candle', as: *'Yon luminary amputation needs;* *Thus shall you save its half-extinguished life."* One can find old 'snuffers' still in antique shops, usually resembling a pair of scissors with a little box on one blade: the cone-shaped items we often think of as 'snuffers' were then called 'extinguishers'. There were different degrees of candles as well: the cheapest would be tallow dips; then there would be bayberry and beeswax; the brightest, cleanest, and most expensive would have been of spermaceti. For lamp oils, there was a similar hierarchy: common grease or lard oil; fish oil; various seed oils; and at the top, sea-mammal ('train oil') or whale oil.
I’m totally transfixed watching Jon throw a little oil lamp. I did take ceramics in college, so knowing the process myself makes a million times more amazing. Mad respect for the amount of dried clay on Jon’s work pants. Seriously, I can totally tell how much time he dedicates to pottery by the dirt on his pants.
That's why I love watching and learning about things like this. Also watch bushcraft videos as well. Heck I know how to make candle out of a 6lb tub of vegetable shortening that could last months if used properly.
I have made an oil lamp from nothing more that a piece of cotton string (shoe lace in my case), a button, and a container to hold the oil (in my case an empty tuna can). Crazy simple. Of course you can make a makeshift candle from crayons and a piece of cotton string. Put the sting in the center of a few crayons, tie the whole bundle together with more string, then light the string. All of these i did as a kid as "fun experiments" from books. And they all work, more or less. The lamps you made were much more efficient and complicated, but still pretty easy to make.
Jerome- Can vegetable oils be used? Like expired olive oil or canola? Some restaurants in the 70's and 80's were filling wine bottles with an oil ( I think) . Then cotton string steeped in the oil was threaded up through a fired clay bead. (A very lovely touch to an Italian dinner.)
@@lynnodonnell4764 Yup, olive oil was actually a common lamp fuel because it has a low combustion temperature but stays liquid till fairly low temperatures unlike animal fats. Heck you can make a cheap but stupidly long lasting emergency candle with a can of Crisco (or an off brand) and just shoving as wick(s) down into it. A big can of Crisco can last days. (which if you didn't know Crisco is just a hydrogenated vegetable oil which makes it solid at room temps)
Always glad to find you at the potter's wheel. I've never thought how common or how far back the potters use of the extruded form might go. Thanks for always giving us so much to think on.
Tech w Sean- As a young girl I saw a beautiful beaver coat w a BEAUTIFUL lining- I was very intrigued. Then as a young woman I saw an armoir with a BEAUTIFUL crafted interior. Hummm- 2 items w hidden aesthetics... Going to college to get my BA in ART there was often discussions concerning: IS IT ART OR CRAFT ? CAN FUNCTION ALSO EXHIBIT BEAUTY? Can FUCTION also have FORM?. My mom was close friends with Georgia Wallers whose husband wrote the book 'Bridges of Madison County' turned famous movie starring Clint Eastwood & Meryl Streep. Okay, Georgia was also a potter. Here's where I'm going w this... I have a Georgia Wallers pitcher sitting out for DISPLAY in house w other college roommates. I'd come home and find the GW Pitcher in the kitchen cupboard. I'd put it out for display. This kept up for some time. " Okay, I asked my roommates in frustration, " Who keeps putting my pitcher away"? " Why is it sitting out anyway when it's not in the fridge"? one said in her defense. " Because not only is it FUNCTIONAL it is also ART " I replied. "That's ART???" qiured my roommates. "But you put it in the fridge w water in it. ART is something you look at, not a kitchen item." The whole Form&Function concept was lost on them. This was way back in the 70's. To 'Keep the Peace' I kept it out of view when not in use.
Heck, i have oil lamps in my house right now. Storms are a thing, and loss of power sucks if all you have are electric lights. I also have a coleman gas lamp, because those are SO much better than oil lamps, but less safe indoors. You can make a huge oil lamp using a crisco can and the oil in it. Dangerous, but if you need it, you need it.
My mother in law has oil lamps all over her house since we live in a hurricane impact area. She gave some to her kids for emergencies so I have them in various rooms of my house as well.
@@Marlaina I have some of those, too. I live in a thunderstorm/tornado prone area and we have at least one power outage every year and sometimes more than one. We had one just 4 days ago. All we got where I live was a dust storm that knocked down some tree limbs that hit some power lines, but there was a tornado about 25 miles Southeast of here and a really bad one 90 miles to the South. The power was back on by 9 pm, so it was still light outside, so the oil lamps weren't needed, but if the outage had lasted longer I would have lit them.
It probably did have a layer of oil on everyone's homes. Just look at any homes in the last 100 years where people smoked. They get used to a level of grime. They don't even notice it.
@@machintelligence yeah if you burn a LOT of candles you can get a soot buildup. The last house I lived in, we moved in when it was 13 years old and it was all original paint. The prior family had floorstanding candle holders in many locations around the living room. You could see soot circles on the ceiling and "shadows" running up the walls where the candles were.
Excellent videography guys. The lighting and the camera angles on the wheel were really nice. I really respect Jon's versatility. Lots of talent, but practical. And humble! Well done!
What a wonderful discovery! Your channel turned up when I was looking around for ancient oil lamps, and how they were made. I wanted to make one and didn't know how to go about it. Now I do, and will! I look forward to hours and hours of watching all the episodes you offer. Great stuff! Thank your for your time and effort in producing this fascinating content.
I would love to see how you made the pottery wheel, that wheel is spinning really smoothly and I don't know what sort of bearings they would have been able to make to allow it to spin with so little resistance.
Greased bearings made from impregnated hardwoods are pretty good. Not are good as hardened steel balls but plenty good enough for that application. They're high maintenance in comparison though.
John you need to take off your wedding band when throwing clay. The clay is abrasive and you are thinning the band. Thanks for the videos. I enjoy watching.
Like a few of the other people have mentioned, I'd like to see a more in depth video showing more of the finishing touches and details, such as the firing and glazing methods used to seal the clay after it's been fired. Thank you for another good video.
Absolutely wonderful. I watched it as I was going to sleep and missed the end so watched it again when I woke up. Great job. I’d love to see how they would have glazed and fired something like this back then without our modern kilns and commercial glazes. You did a video about salt glaze a long time ago but it was more of a this method existed than a here’s how they did it step by step. Really hope you turn this into a series. It was such a calming and peaceful way to learn about something! Oh, I was also really surprised by how long the wheel kept turning once you got it going! I had been imagining that you’d have to be kicking at a wheel like that almost constantly and couldn’t figure out how you’d manage to turn something intricate with the movement of your leg making your arms and hands move too. So that was fascinating. Would love to see how to build one at some point too. That would be really interesting.
I was just playing a game called Kingdom Come Deliverance and loved the oil lamps on the table. Long story short I couldn’t wait to make one at some point. Now today not even 12 hours later my favorite revolutionary homesteader is giving me a great tutorial. I’ll be going on a new rabbit hole dive of your videos. Thank you for all you do! Love from Alaska ❤ what an interesting world
Amazing 1,100 likes in a few hours. And almost 10 000 views. I love this channel. Nothing could be better than a relaxing, educational program. Thank you.
I feel like this is going back to the channels "roots", but we get a longer video and no sales pitch 😁. Honestly, back then, I didn't mind the sales pitch because the videos are always informative. Great video.
Honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with a little self-advertisement in one's content as long as it isn't obnoxious and doesn't detract from the experience. You gotta keep in mind that selling these products is pretty much Townsends' main source of revenue, providing them with the budget to make all these cool videos.
Good go old man...at 64 years 11 months with over 35 years of potting, I feel you did okay for the time period. Talking and throwing is a special skill. Hats off to you.
I remember when I was a kid my grandma had a class measuring cup she collected grease in. One day, the power went out, and she pulled out some lamp wick and shoved it in the grease, laying it across the spout and lit it, making herself a lamp for the kitchen.
Get some of those dollar solar lawn lights. That's what Styxx used then he had an extended power outage. Having something like this would be a great backup, but having a lightsource that requires no additional inputs other than being left outside during the day can be a lifesaver.
Great episode John! Pottery and glass blowing have always been interests of mine, ever since I lived near Jamestown as a kid. I hope we'll see more episodes like this in the future! A small nitpick - it was a bit hard to understand at times through the video, like the microphone wasn't quite catching everything.
I read about the native coastal tribes, that Lewis & Clark interacted with, using a certain kind of oily fish called candlefish (eulachon) as a lamp. I can see the benefit of oil or oil-imbedded items as a light source alternative to candles. Gotta wonder about the smell though
With that hole in the bottom you could put a peg on a board mounted to a wall and to be able to keep it from being knocked of the wall that the lamp will sit down on.
Very nice. In seeing the down view at 22:15 I would have put 3 or maybe 4 tubes on that to give it the option to light more than one wick creating more light.
With the size of vessel, that might not work. There’s a distinct potential of flame instability from insufficient oxygen if the wicks are too close together.
I so badly want to sit down on a stool next to him as he shows this, and kick the wheel for him. Brings back manual woodworking and pottery work memories with my grandfather
The moment you mentioned wick drippings, I wondered why everyone wouldn't simply make a wick holder towards the center of the ceramic vessel. It's the easiest thing to do. And of course, that is exactly what you do.
Not sure what they called it back then, but that wet clay "slime" is called Slip. Had entire containers of it when I took ceramics since you don't always work with water.
I threw clay at a local art / craft store. It was fun to try. A group of us there brought up Ghost. Couldn't let that go by. I managed to make nice little pot that has doodads in. Can't have too many of those 😂. I tried to make my second item but had bad luck and ended up with not enough clay to make anything of a decent size. I'd like to do it again, but I don't know where I'd put the creation. 🍯
People back then would use grease lamps or rush lights. Rush lights are easy to make. Just strip a part of the rush, dip it in animal fat, then let them dry.
