A free-form plate.
Pressing Matters
Making Platters with Molds
By Bill Shinn
he traditional method of creating platters on a wheel involves, as with all thrown forms, the multiple steps of centering, opening, spreading, lifting, nishing the lip, and later, when the clay is leather hard, trimming. Because of the basic atness of the nal form, the use of a slab roller has made this procedure virtually obsolete. Here are some great alternatives to creating platters using a variety of forming methodsall without a wheel.
A round plate with impressed rim decoration.
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1
For a more decorative rim, carve a wooden rib into a desired shape.
2
This cutaway demonstrates using a cut credit card to shape a ring of clay for a shallow platter mold.
3a
For larger platters, throw a tubular ring for greater strength. First split the clay and lift two walls. Make the inner wall taller for bending outward and connecting with the outer wall.
3b
Bend the inner wall outward and connect with the outer wall. Use a rib to complete the desired uplift and aredout shape. This cutaway shows the nal cross-section. Make a small hole for venting during drying and ring.
Small Plates
For saucers and small plates, roll out a pad of clay, place it on the wheel, use a needle tool to trim round. Carve a wooden tool into a desired shape and use it to lift the outer edge into the familiar rise and are-out (gure 1).
Fired Slump Mold
An alternative to making plaster hump/slump molds is to construct molds from red clay. The procedure for constructing a red drape mold for a platter is quite simple. Throw a ring for the desired shape of the lip (gure 2). For larger forms, you may wish to throw a more substantial tubular rim (gures 3a and 3b). Either way, cut the rim from the bat but leave in place and allow to dry. Bisque re then glue the ring onto a wooden basean existing bat works best (gure 4).
4
The nished red and glued slump mold. Notice the holes for centering on the wheel-head.
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5
Place the rolled out slab of clay into place. A circle of paper covers the bottom to prevent sticking to the bat.
6
Trim excess clay using the edge of the mold as a guide.
7
A rolling stamp can be used to make a decorative rim. Throwing marks have been imprinted on the oor of the piece.
8
As a nal step, slightly lift the outer edge and round it to nish the piece.
Transport Tip
An easy way to transport a slab of clay to our mold is to drape it over a cardboard tube.
To use this mold, roll out a slab circle of clay and place it in the mold (gure 5). Press into place then trim the platter using the outer edge of the mold to guide the needle (gure 6). Note: Since most of the clay rests directly on the wooden bat surface, place a circle of paper on the center of the bat to prevent sticking. The porous bisque edge would, of course, create no such sticking problem, and be much more durable than plaster for multiple use. The slump formed platter has several advantages over the hump mold. With the clay resting on a rm outer shoulder, you can immediately stamp and carve it with no resulting distortion. The soft surface is ideal for a rolling stamp (gure 7). (See PMI, March/April 2004 for my article on how to make these.) I nd this method to be visually more appealing, plus I can create a stronger, more rigid form by slightly lifting up
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9a
To make an oval-shaped hump mold, the ring is undercut with a wire, and pressure is applied on opposite sides. A strip of plastic foam distributes the pressure evenly for forming a more precise curve. A small roll of clay can be temporarily added on the opposite side to prevent the ring from sliding off while applying pressure.
10 9b
After the ring is bisque red, it is returned to the bat, centered and glued into place. Then, the center is lled with plaster to complete the mold. Pictured above is a completed oval-shaped mold and a nished glazed platter made from it.
the outer edge as the wheel turns (gure 8). The resulting compound curve also makes the platter much less likely to warp before drying to leather-hard. Another advantage of the slump mold is that the clay can simply dry and shrink within the mold.
Hump Mold
The hump mold, which is an upside-down platter shape, is more complex to make but also has its own advantages. It is also thrown on a centered bat with the outer edge formed as a platter lip, but facing downward. After bisque ring, the ring is returned to the bat, centered, and glued into place as with the slump mold. The center is then lled with plaster to
complete the mold. Make sure that you are working on a level surface. For large platters the mold can be quite heavy and awkward to turn over. A round sheet of plastic foam can ll some of the inner center space and lighten the piece. An advantage of such a mold is that it will produce precise crisp edges and lines on the nished piece mirroring those that were created on the surface of the original thrown lip. Remember that the face down mold will produce a face up lip on the nished platter with all of the ne details of the mold imprinted and clearly visible. Dont restrict yourself to round forms for these molds. After throwing a ring, form it into an elliptical shape (gure 9). First, allow the clay to stiffen
10
To make an asymmetrical free-form hump mold, draw the outline of the shape on a piece of newsprint. Extrude the rim prole and place on the paper following the outline in sections. When leather hard, carve the side pieces to t within the outer curve. Bisque re the parts separately then glue to any at surface. Pour plaster into the center to complete the hump mold.
11
After the piece has been on the hump mold for about an hour, turn it over and ift the mold out of the clay form. This will prevent the clay from shrinking and cracking around the mold.
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somewhat (forming immediately tends to atten the sides). Tip: Pour a thin layer of water in the center before cutting from the bat with a wire. Press inward on opposite sides to form the desired elliptical shape. Using a strip of exible plastic foam distributes the pressure and does a neater job. For free-form platters, a far more efcient method of producing the rim is to use an extruder to eliminate the time and trouble of throwing the ring. In minutes you can extrude enough strips to create a score of varied shapes for platters. Designing and cutting the die with the desired cross section can be easily done for both a slump and a hump mold. Draw the patterns for the various platter shapes out on a sheet of newsprint. As the clay is extruded it can be guided into roughly the direction to create the desired curve before placing over the drawn pattern (gure 10). After trimming the parts to t, they are simply bisque red, then glued to a piece of plywood. Pour plaster into the center. Hump molds work pretty much the same as slump molds; however, a minor inconvenience of the hump mold is that the clay cannot remain in place to dry. In about an hour youll notice a crack beginning to form on the outer edge between the mold and the clay. Turn the work over and remove the mold before any further shrinking takes place (see gure 10). The last step is to round off the sharp edge that remains on the outer edge. This can be done later when the clay is leather hard or bone dry. A handy homemade tool for this purpose is a clay le made from a at stick wrapped and stapled with several layers of window screen. To complete the piece, you may trim a shallow foot into the base, but I usually just lightly burnish the at surface. Bill Shinn is a potter living in Santa Maria, CA. Send comments and questions to him at shinn@sbceo.org.
Above: Example of an interestingly shaped platter that was created using the extruded hump-mold technique.
Below: Example of a glazed and red free-form platter made from the mold at the bottom of page 34.
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