Hand Extruder Clay Pottery Art

Hand extruders are an indispensable adjunct to clay pottery art. Extruders can be used to form the main piece itself, or to add elements to wheel-thrown vessels. Even pulled handles can start out as extrusions. Although it may appear at first that using extruders to produce work enables the artisan to make scores of identical items quickly, in fact just the opposite is true. Extruded pottery requires measuring, cutting, smoothing, and joining, and therefore can require more time than a similar pot which is thrown. For some types of forms, extruding is the best way to go. Although manufacturers offer many different die configurations, serious extruder enthusiasts make their own dies. Designing and making dies is an integral part of the creative process; it requires thinking in a different perspective, because it is the negative die space which produces the form. With practice it is possible to shift one's spatial thinking so that it is easy to picture the three dimensional piece which is obtained from a shape outline cut into a die of two dimensions; and vice versa. Indeed, I sometimes look at everyday objects and try to picture mentally what the die which would be needed to form them looks like.



Pottery decorated with twisted coil handles and rims have been popular since antiquity. While twisted coils can be made by hand, they have a high rate of failure since they often crack during the drying or firing. One solution is to extrude the coils, which ends the cracking problem and also speeds up the job. For example, to make a Mexican clay pottery style bucket with braided rope top, start with a plain thrown cylinder. It is the extruded handle and rim which give this useful object its unique look. To form the bucket part, use 3 ½ lbs of clay and throw a 6" diameter cylinder which is about 7" high. Do not cut the pot from the bat when it is finished since it must be returned to the wheel later in order to attach the rim. When the pot is leather-hard, place a twisted rope extrusion around the top edge of the pot, beginning with one end and working towards the other. A fetting knife or cheese cutter can be used to cut the extrusion to the exact length needed, at an angle along the twisted extrusion lines. This provides increased surface area to form a tight joint. The rim is attached to the pot, both inside and outside, by gently pushing the clay into the bucket body. Then the join is smoothed and blended by rotating the wheel slowly, and gently throwing the join. The rim is pinched and extended at opposite sides of the bucket rim to make two lugs for attaching the handle.



Decorative coils or pellets can be added on either side of the lugs. Then, cut the bucket from the bat, and cover it to permit the moisture level to even out. When leather-hard, two holes for the bail of the handle are punched in the lugs with a piece of ¼" tubing. The bucket handle is made from a short piece of the twisted extrusion left over from the hand extruder when making the rim. Roll the extrusion over a handle roller, which is made by gluing short pieces of quarter round and cove molding to a board. Just before the handle is leather-hard, a hole is made through its length with a metal rod. It is easiest to work from one end for an inch or two, then switch ends and work towards the middle. After the pieces are fired, a 14" long brass rod (such as brazing rod) is inserted in the handle, centered, and then bent to shape. The ends of the rod can be threaded with a 6/32 metal cutting die, and secured to the bucket with threaded brass balls obtained from a lamp parts supply company.

A hand extruder is quite useful in creating striking visual accents in clay pottery art. This simple Mexican clay pottery bucket with twisted coil rim is one example of the many possibilities.