Foot Soaking Bowl a Challenge

I've been spending most of my energy these past few days on an order for some foot bowls. Twenty inches wide at its widest and about eight inches tall, the shape has challenged my limited proficiency with large pots. I started off with 20 pounds of clay, then 25 pounds, then 30 and then approximately 40 pounds for the last one I threw. I say approximately because the last bowl I made by first throwing the bottom with 12 pounds of clay and then adding a huge coil of clay (I estimated it to weigh 30 pounds) for the wall of the bowl. I learned that it takes a lot of clay to bring a 20-inch cylinder up a few inches in height.

The design for the foot bowl (for soaking your feet in) calls for a sloped rim. So after the bowl is thrown, it's got to dry enough to run a wire through it using a guide to get a nice sloped rim.

Levi and I place the bowl
on a table set up for cutting
the rim.

Two boards cut for the slope
of the rim.

A little sawing action got the
wire through the clay.

And there's your foot bowl.

I've got to trim the bowl, so I'm going to lay a wooden bat on top of the clay that was cut off at an angle (already on a bat) and lay the bowl upside down on top of the bat for trimming.

I used my Peter Pugger to make the coil, so it was quite a large coil, but it worked. When I joined the coil, I did a sloppy job which caused a bit of a bump in the bowl, which made throwing the rest of the bowl a bit sloppy, but I'll be trying a different method of joining next time.

Levi and I slammed the coil down a few times to flatten it. He had the idea of using my slab roller to flatten it next time.

I'll share more as I get better at it.