WORD OF THE WEEK - 30 March 2015 - GRAFTER

GRAFTER Equipment. Ovens Dept. Saggar making.  A flat D-shaped tool, a bit like a flat spade, and called a grafter was used to slice a flat piece of saggar marl from the dump (large lump of saggar marl clay) before use. See the movie, MAU'ING THE SAGGAR a film by Gerald Mee 1981, for the full story here>


WORDS OF THE WEEK - 23 March 2015 - WICKET AND CLAMMINS

WICKET vs CLAMMINS : The 'wicket' is the open entrance into a bottle oven. 'Clammins' is the brickwork built to seal the wicket before firing.


WORDS OF THE WEEK -16 March 2015 - SORTING and SELECTING

SORTING vs SELECTING : Words not to be confused. Sorting is a process in the glost warehouse involving the removal of fired-on pips, stilt marks or kiln bits. Sorters use a special tool, made from steel about 1/8 inch thick, 1 inch broad, and from 10 to 12 inches long, and sharpened at each end, to knock the pip or stilt marks off the back of flatware (plates, soup plates and saucers) after it has been fired. Same as ginneting.


Selecting, however, is the inspection of flatware or holloware after a processing stage (biscuit, or glost, or enamel firing) to look for faults.

WORD OF THE WEEK - 9 March 2015 - HEATING UP DUNT

HEATING UP DUNT Pottery fault. Sometimes known as an IN-DUNT. A body crack created during the heating cycle of the firing process. Characterised by smooth and rounded edges to the crack because the glaze flows into it and matures after the crack took place. cf out dunt

New definition just added ...

STRAW WRAPPED Process. Warehouse and despatch. Applicable to very large pieces of pottery, for instance sanitaryware. Sanitary earthenware, when shipped in bulk (two-ton lots or more) in the 1920s and 30s was often sent wrapped in straw, without wooden cases or other protection. This style of packing, known as “Straw Wrapped," consisted of enveloping the article in straw secured in position by cord. The main advantage of Straw Wrapping was that the cost was only about half that of wooden cases or crates, and where freight was paid on a measurement/volume basis there was also a substantial saving in cost of transport.


WORD OF THE WEEK - 2 March 2015 - GREEN

GREEN  - pronounced in The Potteries as GRANE. Pottery is green when it is still in the clay state but dry and quite hard, but not soft and 'plastic.' Green product is stored in the GREY NICE (Potteries dialect for greenhouse) before firing.

Green (grane) WCs which have been cast and dried.
Being stored in the Gray Nice before inspection
and then spraying with glaze, before firing