Warping

How to prevent warping

  1. Use a clay body with grog. Grog usually makes clay less likely to warp. (porcelain warps more easily).
  2. Roll your slab in multiple directions.
  3. Roll your slabs thick enough, the larger the piece, the thicker your slab should be to prevent warping.
  4. Dry slowly and evenly. I use a plastic greenhouse to dry my pieces in.
  5. Make/trim multiple foot rings to support the weight, create an extra one in the middle to prevent slumping.
  6. Make sure the thickness is even throughout the piece. You may have thinner spots where you trimmed, or near rims. Thicker rims help a lot.
  7. Clay has a memory if you bend or stretch it you create tiny microscopic stretch marks , it will remember.
  8. Dry slowly and evenly!
  9. Fire your plate on a flat, unwarped kiln shelf.
  10. Use a thin layer of alumina hydrate so the plates can slide and shrink during firing.
  11. Use a cookie which is made with the same clay body and at the same time as your plate. Both pieces will shrink together.
  12. Dry slowly and evenly!!
  13. ….

What do you do to prevent warping?