When Is the Right Time to Burnish Pottery? Q&A

[@Ellenklinkt]

It's uncanny how you keep posting things exactly when I need them. I forgot to burnish a pot in time and have just remedied that by dipping my stone in water. Worked like a charm. Thank you, oh master!

[@AncientPottery]

You are so welcome, happy to help.

[@loveandlight4875]

I love your channel, but so many times it’s hard to hear you with that loud music in the background. Aside from that I love your channel is so informative. Thank you.

[@AncientPottery]

I am a little hard of hearing. When I started editing video I was getting the audio levels wrong a lot. Now I have a good set of headphones which helps me do better, this is an older video.

[@brianwheeler3583]

I love this finish look. It has this natural element that shows the work that goes into the piece. I hope I can achieve this result

[@AncientPottery]

Thanks, I love the texture of unglazed clay.

[@dustinlamberta8009]

Through practice I’ve come to learn that I have to wait longer to burnish than originally thought. Thanks for the video!

[@AncientPottery]

Yes, I feel the same way. I am always anxious to burnish long before it is time. I need to learn more patience.

[@marciacunningham5877]

Hi, Andy. I just made a great discovery, experimenting at 2 AM. After stone burnishing, I went back and dampened a spot at a time and buffed with a soft cloth. Wow! What a gloss! The pot had mostly dried so I dampened and stone burnished a spot at a time before buffing. Michael

[@AncientPottery]

Sounds great! Thanks for sharing your discovery but 2:00 AM? I definitely don't do my best work then!

[@luzenidcabrerarivera4821]

Burnishing is my favorite part of the pottery process. With the red Central Mexican clay, the rim of the olla gets dry faster. So, I always start burnishing the rim of the olla first.

[@AncientPottery]

Thanks. Good tip.

[@oriundodelbosque7912]

Oooh i love it when Im actively working on something and my favorite pottery chanell releases a video about it! Thank you for another perfect video.

[@AncientPottery]

Yay! Thank you!

[@TocTocTrax]

I really enjoyed watching you video. Very interesting and creative channel. Amazing result! Thanks for sharing!

[@AncientPottery]

Thanks for watching.

[@marciacunningham5877]

Well, like you say, all clays are not the same. The clay that buffed to a high sheen was a pinkish white clay. My pond clay is brown and doesn't buff well. However, it works wonderfully and needs no processing. Michael

[@AncientPottery]

That's great. Know your clays and what they are capable of. Thanks!

[@relmilioortiz5646]

I just found his channel and I’m glad I did! Very informative videos. Love the content. 👍🏽

[@AncientPottery]

Welcome aboard!

[@cherrymocha77]

We're making spirit animals in my ceramics class using pinch cups and joining the form using a reinforcement coil/slip. Mine is a whale and I was wondering why only the tail was actually getting burnished. Thank you for telling me that it doesn't all dry at the same time!!

[@airstreamwanderings3683]

Another good video, thanks. Maybe in a future video you could address burnishing once the painting is done.

[@AncientPottery]

Thanks Wes, a good point, burnishing a painted pot can be quite different from this. I will make that video.

[@cre2919]

Thanks for sharing God Bless

[@AncientPottery]

Thank you too

[@QuailCanyonAnthropolgy]

I just started burnishing my pot 20 minutes ago... still too wet... thanks for answering all of my questions with one video.

[@AncientPottery]

You are welcome. I hope your pot turns out good.

[@alfonso8744]

Hey Andy, please help me! I polished my leather dry pot, it was leather dry and the natural color of the clay is light grey, but after i finished the polishing i can definitely say that now he is a lot more darker (it is very dark grey) and shiny. Will this change the color of the pot after the firing or it will simply change the shine? I can still paint on this very polished pot (i want to use your mineral paint recipe)? Thanks a lot!

[@AncientPottery]

You are going to be okay Alfonso. Only by trying different things will you learn what is possible. Fire it, you may love the results, or if you hate it, maybe you will know not to do it again.

[@alfonso8744]

@@AncientPottery you're right Andy! Sorry if I bothered you a lot, I really appreciate that you always answer questions!

[@AncientPottery]

@@alfonso8744 not a problem

[@blancawyatt3092]

I just made a mole pot and the second day I use the quartz to polish the bottom of the pot and is beautiful shiny but the next day I try to polish the top and is bone dry like you were saying in your video. So the rest of the pot is not shiny..

[@AncientPottery]

It's all about catching the clay at the right stage of dryness. Some times if the pot is getting close before bed or if I am going to work or something, then I will wrap it up in a plastic bag so it won't dry any more.

[@code-monet9468]

Did you make your own smooth stone or just buy one?

[@AncientPottery]

I buy some and find others in nature.

[@ponuyyq1242]

Hi thanks for sharing video, it helps a lot . question. you firing ceramic all at once without glazing(ex. matt transparent ) ? not dividing bisque firing and 2nd firing . I want to make mug cup with stone polishing technique :)

[@AncientPottery]

Yes, all Southwest pottery is traditionally single fired. Make it, polish it, paint it and fire once.

[@stephenwalford774]

Hello Andy.. Complete pottery here newbie from France..absolutely hooked on your pots and way of building. So over here only can purchase shop bought material..made a few pinch pots and couple of pukies aleady ..Using standard clay..tempered with sharp sand. Have even pit fired a couple bits...Amazing ..So just a bit confused with the finishing process...Cant find a video that explains ..sequence of drying, polishing and slip.. Do you wait till leather hard , burnish to a sheen then apply the white slip ? or do you paint slip when leather and polish both surfaces at same time..? My slip is made from just white clay..is this ok? but comes off when i burnish... cant find any info on organic colours that i can find..so was going to whit slip large areas and scratch through some designs...sorry a few question here..any help or info from anyone would be great.....keep up the work cheers Steve

[@AncientPottery]

Thanks Steve. I guess this is something I need to make a video to clarify. I slip when leather hard and I polish when leather hard. It's all about the correct dryness level. So when the pot has dried some and is no longer plastic and sticky, I slip it. Then I let it dry and when I can polish the slip without it coming off on the stone, I polish. This step may differ for different clay slips. Some are easily polished and some not so much. Experiment. Organic paint is a hard thing to get right, the secret ingredient is a smectite clay slip. Since you are in France, see if you can get some montmorillonite to use as a slip, then paint organic paint on top of that. I will be making another video about organic paint very soon.

[@stephenwalford774]

@@AncientPottery Hi Andy..thanks for the reply and putting my query in place .I will try next time to follow that and search for some montmorillonite. Another problem is my temper must be a bit too big ,when burnishing it comes to surface and is scratching my stone,so will sieve finer from now on...keep up the great work your doing, watching over again Thanks Steve

[@amandabenzine3181]

I actually got some of my wild clay pieces fired! the burnishing wasn't evenly done but when the chance was presented I rushed to hand over anything I thought would make it through the process. While diving back in to the art I was attempting to dry process some rock solid clay and accidentally found that window screen folded over a few times works insanely well for burnishing, at least, it seems to. Have you tried to burnish with any non-traditional materials?

[@AncientPottery]

I have never tried window screen but recently accidentally had good success with a scotchbrite pad.

[@edstud1]

Are you slipping with terra sig?

[@AncientPottery]

I guess it is like terra sig but this is clay I found in nature and processed myself.

[@montyferguson4657]

I'm sitting here watching your videos while burnishing my pot.

[@gnarbeljo8980]

When it's leather dry and still cool.

[@AncientPottery]

Leather hard is a spectrum, and to me saying to burnish at leather hard isn't the full story.

[@BarbaraChichester]

Love your videos, but the background music is very distracting. I want to listen to what you have to say.

[@AncientPottery]

I do my best and am learning as I go

[@BarbaraChichester]

@@AncientPottery you do great, you are so informative, don't want to miss anything you say! :)

[@oldugly9295]

good day Andy i have been making pots with red iron oxide paint (mixed like the lessons) on the base clay color. i have no white slip yet that works. if i burnish the pot before painting, the paint has a hard time soaking in and leaves ruff edges. if i don't burnish i get nice lines but no shine on the pot. i don't know if maybe i should paint the pot then burnish over the image but i am thinking the pot may be too dry and also may wreck the artwork. kinda hard to burnish around the artwork. any thought on this? another great video thank you for your efforts tom

[@AncientPottery]

Are you painting on bone dry pottery? Because I usually find that if the pottery is dry, the paint soaks in quickly whether or not it is burnished. I sometimes paint on burnished pottery as you can see in a few of my videos. You can burnish after you paint, there are two ways, you can carefully burnish the designs and around them being careful not to smear the paint. Or you can cover the area being worked on with a plastic bag and polish over the plastic so the paint doesn't smear.

[@oldugly9295]

@@AncientPottery . i paint when the pottery is dry. sometimes the paint actually beads up when brushed onto a shinny burnished pot. i am going try the plastic bag trick next time. funny thing is, my firing success rate is low, i am working a better success rate. But even though i know something might break i still want to paint it. some would say wasted time but i like to try and see what happens. thank you for helping. tom

[@AncientPottery]

@@oldugly9295 your clay sounds very dense. Are you tempering it?

[@oldugly9295]

@@AncientPottery . yes but i have just added more temper recently to try to cut down on the breakage . and i haven't painted since i did that. maybe the temper affected the paint a swell. thank you

[@AncientPottery]

@@oldugly9295 just a theory but perhaps your clay needs to be more open. On the other hand I paint into slip that is purified clay with no temper. Hmm. Incidentally there are 2 painting workshops scheduled for the kiln conference next month in Utah.

[@daddymoon666]

great videos but the music seems unnecessary and distracting...

[@AncientPottery]

As Abraham Lincoln once said concerning his KZbin videos, "You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time". Thanks for watching despite my distracting music.