Ever wondered what happens to your pottery once you’ve made it? Here’s a little run down of the process once you’ve created your magnificent piece at one of our amazing Pottery Workshops.

First things first, we have to wait. Once you’ve finished the building stage of your creation, we then have to allow the clay to dry out completely until it’s at a stage known as bone-dry. This drying process can take up to 4 weeks depending on the weather, during this time our lovely pottery creatives are keeping a close eye on your pieces to ensure they dry evenly and don’t crack.

Once the piece is bone-dry it’s put in the kiln for it’s first firing, the bisque fire. During this firing, the temperature is taken up to about 1000 degrees Celsius over the course of 12 or so hours before another 12 hours of cooling time. The reason for this firing is to remove any chemically bonded water from the piece and make it easier to glaze in the next step.

After the first firing, your pieces are ready for the fun part - GLAZE! Glazes can really bring a piece to life and we love seeing how much the pieces change after this process. For most of our workshops, the pieces are just bare clay and attendees are given 1-2 options of glazing (often white and another colour), but we do also run a pottery and paint workshop that uses underglazes to create your own designs (underglazes are colours that can be applied to fresh clay and bisque-fired clay). Our amazing pottery creatives are master glazers so they glaze each and every piece that comes from our workshops before their next firing.

With the glaze applied, the pieces are ready to go in for their final firing, the glaze firing. This firing goes all the way up to 1300 degrees Celsius over another 24 hours including the cooling time. During this firing, the glazes melt and fuse with the clay as it strengthens even further and becomes impervious to water.

Once the pieces come out of the glaze firing, they’re delivered back to the House of Hobby HQ and we get in touch with collection dates and times.

Then all you have to do is pick up your piece and bring it home!

House of Hobby xx