The Art of Handling Ceramic Handles: A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to creating ceramic pieces with handles, there is an often-overlooked step in the process known as handling. This involves pulling and shaping the handle to fit snugly onto the cup or vessel, ensuring a secure and even connection. In this article, we will delve into the world of handling ceramic handles, exploring the steps involved and the techniques used by skilled potters.

To begin, the potter must first position the handle on the wheel head, aligning it with the center of the cup. The handle is typically made from a slightly thicker piece of clay than the rest of the vessel, which allows for a snug fit when pulled onto the cup. With a steady hand and a gentle touch, the potter will begin to pull the handle upwards, creating a smooth and even cross-section.

As the handle takes shape, it's essential to maintain an even thickness throughout. This is achieved by carefully alternating sides as the handle is pulled up, ensuring that the cross-section of the handle remains symmetrical. The potter must also be mindful of the length of the handle, making sure it's not too long or too short for the cup.

Once the length is correct, the potter will reposition their left hand and allow the handle to "flop" into place. A moment is taken to ensure the handle is straight and even, before snipping away any excess clay that may have accumulated at the base of the handle. This step is crucial in achieving a clean and seamless join between the cup and handle.

The next stage involves blending the joining area, using either a dry or wet fingertip to smooth out any imperfections. The potter must be patient, taking their time to ensure the clay is fully incorporated into the surrounding surface. Once this process is complete, the potter will check the rest of the handle for any smears or specks of clay that may have escaped during the joining process.

One of the final steps in handling ceramic handles involves a quick clean-up on the base of the cup. Using a leather-hard chuck, the potter will carefully tap and trim the edges of the cup, ensuring a smooth and even surface. This is also an opportunity to check for any scratches or defects, which can be easily corrected before the piece is fired.

As the handles dry out slowly in the studio, they take on their final shape and are ready for glazing. The potter will carefully apply a layer of glaze, using techniques such as pouring or applying by brush. The glaze not only adds color and texture to the piece but also unifies the handle with the cup, creating a seamless connection.

When the pieces are fired in the kiln, they undergo a transformation that changes their appearance forever. The glaze pools in the grooves left by the potter's thumb on the back of the handle, creating a subtle and intricate effect. As the pieces emerge from the kiln, they take on a new personality, with the reduction firing imbuing each one with its own unique character.

For many potters, handling ceramic handles was once a daunting task, but as skill and practice come together, it becomes an enjoyable and rewarding part of the creative process. The similarities between throwing on the wheel and handling are often overlooked, but they share a common bond in their attention to detail and requirement for patience. As we explore the world of ceramic handling, we hope to inspire readers to try this technique themselves, and discover the joy that comes from shaping and molding clay into beautiful and functional pieces.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin this week's video i'll be going over how i pull my handles in a lot more depth as compared to my previous films there's an awful lot to consider when making these and the process itself goes far beyond just pulling the handle as the trimming and how you dry them once the handles have been attached play a large part in how successful they'll be too and i should preface this by saying that there is no one best way to make handles this is simply the method i've grown to like doing over the last 10 years or so but let's begin these are simple angular coffee cup forms which i threw the day previously at this point the rims of these are leather hard but the bottoms aren't they're still quite soft so i carefully flip them over onto a clean board so that the rims don't get damaged this allows the bases where the clay is usually a bit thicker time to dry out to leather hard so that the entire form is more or less the same consistency this drying time may take a few hours or even a whole day sometimes too it really depends on what your studio is like and the climate in which you live in obviously in the winter here when everything's damp and cold everything takes a lot longer to dry up as compared to the summer where i need to be really careful as to not let my pots dry out too quickly as if they do they can crack and warp which is no good i trimmed these cups atop a leather hard truck like this i think i prefer leather hard chucks as compared to bisque fire chucks as they tend to stick to your pot somewhat which helps to hold them in place i've had this one now for almost a year and it's still more or less leather hard i just make sure that i spray it with water after each use and then wrap it up tightly with plastic when i'm not using it i then place one of these 200 gram cups over top tap center it into place and push it down firmly and all i'm doing really is trimming the sides and base to be smooth and clean whilst removing some weight so that the pots even lighter than they are once thrown the new tool on top is a spinner that was gifted to me by one of my followers called richard carter if you want to find him on facebook he's an engineer turned potter and he asked whether i'd like one of these to try out there's a bearing inside so that i can hold the black section of the tool which stays still with my hand whilst the white section spins with the pot as i hold the tool i'm constantly applying downward pressure through the pot this helps to keep it really securely in place on top of the chuck and it also distributes the weight of my fingers pushing down as if i were to trim without it there's a good chance that i could bow or slightly indent the base next i trim a beveled edge on the bottom corner of the pot and then i skim away a thin layer from the base itself removing the wiring off marks and making it nice and smooth i then use the flat edge of a sharp metal kidney just to burnish the clay and finally i stamp it with my maker's mark the process of trimming these often reveals clay underneath that's a little bit softer so before i attach the handles i'll again let them dry out for a while as the dryness of the cup when you attach the handles it's probably one of the most important parts of this entire process if you get it wrong you'll either distort the cup or a crack will develop around the handle here's what i mean and it might be quite difficult to see but this cup here is slightly too soft for handles to be attached to there's just a bit too much give when i squeeze the rim gently whereas this piece with the same pressure applied to the rim deforms a lot less so i'd say this is more or less acceptable the other thing we don't want is any section of the pot that's slightly bone dry as attaching a handle to a section of the mug that's already bone dry is more or less going to crack guaranteed and here's a third mug which i'll just give a little squeeze to check and basically as i'm pulling handles and working my way through all the cups i'll always choose the ones that are the driest to pull first and if i come across one that feels a little bit softer i'll just leave it to the end here's a cross section of the cup just to give you an idea of just how thin they are of course this level of finesse means i do need to work more carefully so if your pots are thicker or chunkier the process becomes easier really as the act of attaching the handle and pulling it from the pot will do less potential damage to the piece itself whereas with these thin pots if i make one mistake the pot is usually ruined but like most things with ceramics it's generally just a case of trial and error and figuring out what works best for you anyhow let's get started with the handles themselves for these i use clay that's more or less the same consistency that i would use for throwing nothing too soft and definitely nothing too firm either i take the block of clay and give it a quick wedge just to ensure that there are no air bubbles inside as discovering one in the handle that you're pulling can be a real pain as it often deforms it once the massive clay has been wedged up i begin to roll it into a long tapering shape which is more or less round in cross-section but it doesn't need to be perfect when pulling i'll hold it by this top end and i'll slowly pull out the length of clay longer and longer so it can help almost to dig in a sort of groove around the top here which will allow you to grip onto it more easily if you are just starting out too i'd recommend using slightly smaller lumps of clay now for the tools themselves that i use for pulling handles other than my hands of course first there's the big basin of water then there's this slip here which i use to help make the initial join of the handle onto the mug then all i use is a serrated kidney and a knife for the occasional cleanup but generally speaking i don't use that all too much the kidney itself is just used to score the area where the handle will be joined onto the mug so let's begin i take the block of clay and i wet it i grasp near the top right where my hand is i squeeze and i drag down throughout the entire length of clay once a rough oval cross-section has been made i then begin to pull more directly on either side with my hand shaped like this i do a pull on one side and then the other but usually when i'm doing this at speed i'll do a few pulls on one side and then a few more on the other and so on the entire time too i'm keeping the length of clay wet as if my hand or the length of clay dry out one will stick to the other and when that occurs there's a very good chance that you'll rip the entire length of clay away from the block on top pulling quickly helps as if you travel too slowly the length of clay tends to dry out more quickly each pull is almost entirely consistent too from the moment i squeeze at the top and pull all the way to the base i don't hesitate or change the amount of pressure i use my movements are always consistent i then take this long length of clay and lay it out bit by bit snipping them off against the sharp edge of this wooden board this gives me a nice flat area which i'll be able to pat into a flare later on before i attach them to the mug but essentially i just lay them side by side and try to get the length of each one to be more or less identical in reality as these are going to be pulled again it doesn't matter if the shapes are a bit off by a few millimeters here and there as generally i prefer to pull these to be a little bit bigger than what i need anyway so i like to have more material to work with as compared to too little once the first batch of handled blanks have been pulled i'll go back to the same block i was using and i'll continue to pull it even more although this time it is a bit easier as the block of clay already has the sort of tapering form i want in theory you could use an extruder to do this process but then that means you have an extruder that needs to be cleaned each time you do this the other advantage of pulling blanks like this is that it's incredibly easy to alternate the shape as you need it so say i'm pulling handles for some large jugs mugs and some espresso cups i'm not constantly having to change the dye plate in the extruder i can just pull some handle blanks that are a bit bigger and then some that are a bit smaller without changing anything additionally at this point i don't worry about any fingerprints that are on these in fact they can look quite messy at this stage but that's okay as they're all going to be reattached to the mugs themselves and pulled again here's one last look at how i pull these but from a closer angle you can see that at the bottom of this block i already have part of the previous length pulled which is the correct thickness and shape it acts as quite a useful guide as i can simply pull the clay above it until it matches the shape exactly of the end piece it's for this reason when i'm pulling that i don't always snip the very last blank away from the length of clay instead i leave it on the block of clay as a reference so that i know which thickness to pull to when it comes to doing it again and while i am pulling quickly i never try to pull too much clay downward at once rather i pull the clay down bit by bit once i finally have enough and if i'm doing lots i'll stack all the handle blanks on top of each other this prevents the absorbent wood underneath from drawing out too much moisture from the clay itself as once these are all pulled they're more or less the perfect condition to attach to the mugs i don't like them to dry out too much as they're actually much easier to attach and blend into the mug when they're still quite soft so when i'm stacking them like this i don't mind if there are fingerprints on them it's like i mentioned previously i'll be attaching these and pulling them again but what i don't want to do when handling them is indent them too much as any actual indents or deeper marks can create issues later on on hot days once these are all stacked up i'll even wrap them up in plastic and spray them occasionally with water too again just to keep them from drying out too much you may not think it's that noticeable but i can definitely tell when my handles are becoming too dry to pull it's generally the nice flowing shape that i'm aiming for begins to be a little bit harder to achieve whereas when the clay is nice and soft it tends to flow quite naturally producing the curves that i want this is a stack from another day and when i don't have so many to do i may not wrap them in plastic as i know i'll be able to finish them quite quickly they can get a little stuck together sometimes but as long as you remove them carefully you shouldn't have any issues next we can finally move on to actually attaching the handle planks i start by scoring a small area about a centimeter and a half below the rim then i dab some slip onto this area quite liberally this acts as glue if you will and it'll create a softer area where the handle will join more easily onto i then carefully place my mug down onto an area that's free of any dust or burrs of clay as they'll embed into the base ruining my careful trimming next comes the shaping of the handle blank itself i take it carefully in one hand holding it in such a way that i don't indent any of the length then with my right hand i use my index finger to tap out one end which creates a flare of clay like you can see here this provides material which i'll easily be able to blend into the mug which means i'll be able to make a nice strong join you can see here just how much material i have to work with whereas if i were to turn it around the other way you can see just how little material i have and if i were to try and blend it in like this i'd end up taking too much from the handle itself and thus creating a weak join at the top which is why the flare of clay is so useful now it's time to finally attach the blank i place one hand inside and with the other on the outside i push the handle blank quite firmly into the scored and slipped area the hand on the inside braces the form and stops the pressure pushing inward deforming it they're pushing against each other so to speak once firmly attached i'll carefully push in some of the clay around the edge just to hold it in place securely and then afterwards it's time to do the final pulling and shaping but you can see from this just how firmly it's attached i'll show this from another angle too as there's another important factor to attaching the handle at this point which is when i push the handle blank on i'm pushing from the back of the length i never squeeze it directly as that might deform it too much so instead i push it and wiggle it almost into the cup and you'll know when it's firmly attached when you see this slip being pushed out from the joint i then take the flared out end and i blend it into the cup the whole time being careful as not to take too much material from the length of clay itself i drag a finger over top to smooth out this section and then carefully just make my way all the way around until it's nice and even and blended really smoothly into the cup i then use a wetted finger just to go over the join to soften and smooth any of the smeared clay marks that might be left and now the length is finally ready to be pulled into its finished shape and while this might have felt like it's taken a long time to get to this point in reality the entire process of attaching and pulling a handle takes no more than a minute or so i'm a lot more careful when pulling this time and although my movements might look quite quick my actual touch is quite delicate again i'm pulling either side of the length so that it keeps a nice oval form i then use the tip of my thumb to pull in three grooves into the back of the handle this helps to thin it out even more and it also creates three grooves that will eventually be able to catch the glaze quite nicely the length is then looped downward and pushed into the clay near the base before being pinched off i don't score and slip at the bottom but i just smear the clay carefully all the way around smoothing the bottom joint i want it to look as if it's just flowed back into the cup from the top and eventually once fired it'll look even more natural as the glaze will soften over many of these little parts and fill the line that's just above this bottom joint again i use a wetted finger just to clean up this area and to soften over any marks left from when i smeared in the clay either side i don't know if you can see this but there's a slight whitening on the inside here and just on the rim this is where the pot is just about turning bone dry and i don't want this so if i do happen to notice it at this point i just give the pot a light spray with water before placing it aside finished and this is how the cups look freshly handled you can see just how much softer the handle is as compared to the mug's body and this isn't a problem as long as you dry them out slowly so what i do is i place them on a board lined with plastic and once the board is completely full up i'll wrap them all up tightly and i'll leave them for a couple of days this allows the freshly attached handle and the mug body to slowly acclimatize to one another becoming the same consistency it's only after they've had this period of time to dry together they'll properly unwrap them and allow them to dry out totally in this instance i let them dry under wraps for five days as i actually went on a quick holiday but if you wanted you could leave them for even longer it doesn't matter really as long as you dry them out slowly and evenly that's what prevents cracks from occurring what you never want to do is to simply leave a freshly handled cup out in the open to dry overnight as there's just such a high chance that a crack will develop around the top or bottom joint as the dryer cup will continue to dry much faster than the handle can and eventually the two components will just split once wrapped up as tightly as possible i just place a kiln prop either end to hold all the plastic sheeting in place i really can't overestimate just how important it is to dry these slowly with other handling methods you may get away with it but with this it's quite rare that you will but i think i should show the handle pulling one more time as there really is just so much to discuss about this process once i'm ready to start pulling i use a cupped hand to ladle on really quite a lot of water onto the handle blank then with each pull i place my hand as far up as it'll go against the cup i squeeze the clay at the top where it's thicker and i pull it quickly down the length again alternating sides as you'll see me do every couple of pulls this ensures that the cross-section of the handle is nice and even as i don't want it to be lopsided say thicker on one side than the other then once the length is correct i reposition my left hand and almost let the handle flop into place i then take a moment to make sure it's nice and straight and then snip away any excess there might be then i can clean up the bottom join and excuse the scored in line left in the surface of the clay here although quite prominent now once glazed it'll be completely hidden for the initial blending here i just use a dry fingertip it's not wet then when most of the joining is done it's only then i switched using a wet finger to really just blend in all those little marks and smears of clay that were left over from joining it once the bottom has been joined i do go over and check the rest of the handle too so if there are any specks of clay or smears that need cleaning up around the top too i'll do them now and that's it for the handling although there is still one last thing i need to do to these before they're totally finished but that'll come in a few days once all the cups and handles have been allowed to dry out slowly together and as i don't have a damp cupboard in my studio this is generally how i keep things wrapped up for longer periods of time it works okay generally but i think in the long term if possible i would like to find some area in the studio where i can build a more permanent damp cupboard and that's all of them handled six in a bit boards worth about a day and a half worth of throwing and then two days handling i'd imagine amongst other tasks that need to be done in the studio i'm always juggling various things in this instance this is now five days later and the last thing each of these cups will receive is a really quick clean up on the base which again is done on my leather hard chuck really all i'm doing is cleaning up any tiny scratches or specks of clay that happen to get stuck into the bases of the cups during the handling process it's also a chance to correct the rim as the process of attaching and pulling a handle can sometimes distort the rim itself pulling it slightly into an oval shape so by placing it quite firmly over my very round solid chuck any distortion in the rim is immediately fixed as is forced back onto a circular shape at this point both the handle and the walls of the cup are more or less the same consistency which means they're ready to be dried out properly but first i quickly tap center them which can be tricky with the protruding handle and then just trim around this bottom edge and check for any scratches or other defects really this is just one last moment to do some quality control on the piece itself and if i do so happen to come across one which for some reason has a handle that's the wrong shape i'll just destroy it at this point as long as clay hasn't been fired it can be quite easily recycled so nothing yet has gone to waste and i think from this batch of about 166 cups initially i only lost one or two which isn't bad going it's what i expect really i then carefully pluck the cup off of the truck and set it aside quite delicately as once they've been positioned i won't touch them again until they're completely bone dry and here they all are if only i'd made enough to properly fill all the boards that would have been great but still a good batch i slowly let these dry out now over the weekend while i'm out of the studio but it's always a very satisfying moment to see all of the pieces placed together row by row all more or less identical but i suppose that'll change once they're glazed and fired each always takes on its own personality after it's been reduction fired in my gas kiln but here's how they look once finally glazed the thickness of the glaze does pad out the handle somewhat and it pools in the grooves left by my thumb in the back of the handle which i really like will be a subtle effect the glaze also unifies everything the handle looks as if it was always there the cup and handle are one and the same thing and it's certainly comfortable to hold due to its oval cross section this used to be a process that i never really look forward to but now pulling handles is really one of the things i enjoy most in the studio from the outside is such a different skill from throwing on the wheel but i think there are actually a lot of similarities anyhow i hope you found this video useful and as always thanks for watching lots more to come soon hopefully i'll see you next week youin this week's video i'll be going over how i pull my handles in a lot more depth as compared to my previous films there's an awful lot to consider when making these and the process itself goes far beyond just pulling the handle as the trimming and how you dry them once the handles have been attached play a large part in how successful they'll be too and i should preface this by saying that there is no one best way to make handles this is simply the method i've grown to like doing over the last 10 years or so but let's begin these are simple angular coffee cup forms which i threw the day previously at this point the rims of these are leather hard but the bottoms aren't they're still quite soft so i carefully flip them over onto a clean board so that the rims don't get damaged this allows the bases where the clay is usually a bit thicker time to dry out to leather hard so that the entire form is more or less the same consistency this drying time may take a few hours or even a whole day sometimes too it really depends on what your studio is like and the climate in which you live in obviously in the winter here when everything's damp and cold everything takes a lot longer to dry up as compared to the summer where i need to be really careful as to not let my pots dry out too quickly as if they do they can crack and warp which is no good i trimmed these cups atop a leather hard truck like this i think i prefer leather hard chucks as compared to bisque fire chucks as they tend to stick to your pot somewhat which helps to hold them in place i've had this one now for almost a year and it's still more or less leather hard i just make sure that i spray it with water after each use and then wrap it up tightly with plastic when i'm not using it i then place one of these 200 gram cups over top tap center it into place and push it down firmly and all i'm doing really is trimming the sides and base to be smooth and clean whilst removing some weight so that the pots even lighter than they are once thrown the new tool on top is a spinner that was gifted to me by one of my followers called richard carter if you want to find him on facebook he's an engineer turned potter and he asked whether i'd like one of these to try out there's a bearing inside so that i can hold the black section of the tool which stays still with my hand whilst the white section spins with the pot as i hold the tool i'm constantly applying downward pressure through the pot this helps to keep it really securely in place on top of the chuck and it also distributes the weight of my fingers pushing down as if i were to trim without it there's a good chance that i could bow or slightly indent the base next i trim a beveled edge on the bottom corner of the pot and then i skim away a thin layer from the base itself removing the wiring off marks and making it nice and smooth i then use the flat edge of a sharp metal kidney just to burnish the clay and finally i stamp it with my maker's mark the process of trimming these often reveals clay underneath that's a little bit softer so before i attach the handles i'll again let them dry out for a while as the dryness of the cup when you attach the handles it's probably one of the most important parts of this entire process if you get it wrong you'll either distort the cup or a crack will develop around the handle here's what i mean and it might be quite difficult to see but this cup here is slightly too soft for handles to be attached to there's just a bit too much give when i squeeze the rim gently whereas this piece with the same pressure applied to the rim deforms a lot less so i'd say this is more or less acceptable the other thing we don't want is any section of the pot that's slightly bone dry as attaching a handle to a section of the mug that's already bone dry is more or less going to crack guaranteed and here's a third mug which i'll just give a little squeeze to check and basically as i'm pulling handles and working my way through all the cups i'll always choose the ones that are the driest to pull first and if i come across one that feels a little bit softer i'll just leave it to the end here's a cross section of the cup just to give you an idea of just how thin they are of course this level of finesse means i do need to work more carefully so if your pots are thicker or chunkier the process becomes easier really as the act of attaching the handle and pulling it from the pot will do less potential damage to the piece itself whereas with these thin pots if i make one mistake the pot is usually ruined but like most things with ceramics it's generally just a case of trial and error and figuring out what works best for you anyhow let's get started with the handles themselves for these i use clay that's more or less the same consistency that i would use for throwing nothing too soft and definitely nothing too firm either i take the block of clay and give it a quick wedge just to ensure that there are no air bubbles inside as discovering one in the handle that you're pulling can be a real pain as it often deforms it once the massive clay has been wedged up i begin to roll it into a long tapering shape which is more or less round in cross-section but it doesn't need to be perfect when pulling i'll hold it by this top end and i'll slowly pull out the length of clay longer and longer so it can help almost to dig in a sort of groove around the top here which will allow you to grip onto it more easily if you are just starting out too i'd recommend using slightly smaller lumps of clay now for the tools themselves that i use for pulling handles other than my hands of course first there's the big basin of water then there's this slip here which i use to help make the initial join of the handle onto the mug then all i use is a serrated kidney and a knife for the occasional cleanup but generally speaking i don't use that all too much the kidney itself is just used to score the area where the handle will be joined onto the mug so let's begin i take the block of clay and i wet it i grasp near the top right where my hand is i squeeze and i drag down throughout the entire length of clay once a rough oval cross-section has been made i then begin to pull more directly on either side with my hand shaped like this i do a pull on one side and then the other but usually when i'm doing this at speed i'll do a few pulls on one side and then a few more on the other and so on the entire time too i'm keeping the length of clay wet as if my hand or the length of clay dry out one will stick to the other and when that occurs there's a very good chance that you'll rip the entire length of clay away from the block on top pulling quickly helps as if you travel too slowly the length of clay tends to dry out more quickly each pull is almost entirely consistent too from the moment i squeeze at the top and pull all the way to the base i don't hesitate or change the amount of pressure i use my movements are always consistent i then take this long length of clay and lay it out bit by bit snipping them off against the sharp edge of this wooden board this gives me a nice flat area which i'll be able to pat into a flare later on before i attach them to the mug but essentially i just lay them side by side and try to get the length of each one to be more or less identical in reality as these are going to be pulled again it doesn't matter if the shapes are a bit off by a few millimeters here and there as generally i prefer to pull these to be a little bit bigger than what i need anyway so i like to have more material to work with as compared to too little once the first batch of handled blanks have been pulled i'll go back to the same block i was using and i'll continue to pull it even more although this time it is a bit easier as the block of clay already has the sort of tapering form i want in theory you could use an extruder to do this process but then that means you have an extruder that needs to be cleaned each time you do this the other advantage of pulling blanks like this is that it's incredibly easy to alternate the shape as you need it so say i'm pulling handles for some large jugs mugs and some espresso cups i'm not constantly having to change the dye plate in the extruder i can just pull some handle blanks that are a bit bigger and then some that are a bit smaller without changing anything additionally at this point i don't worry about any fingerprints that are on these in fact they can look quite messy at this stage but that's okay as they're all going to be reattached to the mugs themselves and pulled again here's one last look at how i pull these but from a closer angle you can see that at the bottom of this block i already have part of the previous length pulled which is the correct thickness and shape it acts as quite a useful guide as i can simply pull the clay above it until it matches the shape exactly of the end piece it's for this reason when i'm pulling that i don't always snip the very last blank away from the length of clay instead i leave it on the block of clay as a reference so that i know which thickness to pull to when it comes to doing it again and while i am pulling quickly i never try to pull too much clay downward at once rather i pull the clay down bit by bit once i finally have enough and if i'm doing lots i'll stack all the handle blanks on top of each other this prevents the absorbent wood underneath from drawing out too much moisture from the clay itself as once these are all pulled they're more or less the perfect condition to attach to the mugs i don't like them to dry out too much as they're actually much easier to attach and blend into the mug when they're still quite soft so when i'm stacking them like this i don't mind if there are fingerprints on them it's like i mentioned previously i'll be attaching these and pulling them again but what i don't want to do when handling them is indent them too much as any actual indents or deeper marks can create issues later on on hot days once these are all stacked up i'll even wrap them up in plastic and spray them occasionally with water too again just to keep them from drying out too much you may not think it's that noticeable but i can definitely tell when my handles are becoming too dry to pull it's generally the nice flowing shape that i'm aiming for begins to be a little bit harder to achieve whereas when the clay is nice and soft it tends to flow quite naturally producing the curves that i want this is a stack from another day and when i don't have so many to do i may not wrap them in plastic as i know i'll be able to finish them quite quickly they can get a little stuck together sometimes but as long as you remove them carefully you shouldn't have any issues next we can finally move on to actually attaching the handle planks i start by scoring a small area about a centimeter and a half below the rim then i dab some slip onto this area quite liberally this acts as glue if you will and it'll create a softer area where the handle will join more easily onto i then carefully place my mug down onto an area that's free of any dust or burrs of clay as they'll embed into the base ruining my careful trimming next comes the shaping of the handle blank itself i take it carefully in one hand holding it in such a way that i don't indent any of the length then with my right hand i use my index finger to tap out one end which creates a flare of clay like you can see here this provides material which i'll easily be able to blend into the mug which means i'll be able to make a nice strong join you can see here just how much material i have to work with whereas if i were to turn it around the other way you can see just how little material i have and if i were to try and blend it in like this i'd end up taking too much from the handle itself and thus creating a weak join at the top which is why the flare of clay is so useful now it's time to finally attach the blank i place one hand inside and with the other on the outside i push the handle blank quite firmly into the scored and slipped area the hand on the inside braces the form and stops the pressure pushing inward deforming it they're pushing against each other so to speak once firmly attached i'll carefully push in some of the clay around the edge just to hold it in place securely and then afterwards it's time to do the final pulling and shaping but you can see from this just how firmly it's attached i'll show this from another angle too as there's another important factor to attaching the handle at this point which is when i push the handle blank on i'm pushing from the back of the length i never squeeze it directly as that might deform it too much so instead i push it and wiggle it almost into the cup and you'll know when it's firmly attached when you see this slip being pushed out from the joint i then take the flared out end and i blend it into the cup the whole time being careful as not to take too much material from the length of clay itself i drag a finger over top to smooth out this section and then carefully just make my way all the way around until it's nice and even and blended really smoothly into the cup i then use a wetted finger just to go over the join to soften and smooth any of the smeared clay marks that might be left and now the length is finally ready to be pulled into its finished shape and while this might have felt like it's taken a long time to get to this point in reality the entire process of attaching and pulling a handle takes no more than a minute or so i'm a lot more careful when pulling this time and although my movements might look quite quick my actual touch is quite delicate again i'm pulling either side of the length so that it keeps a nice oval form i then use the tip of my thumb to pull in three grooves into the back of the handle this helps to thin it out even more and it also creates three grooves that will eventually be able to catch the glaze quite nicely the length is then looped downward and pushed into the clay near the base before being pinched off i don't score and slip at the bottom but i just smear the clay carefully all the way around smoothing the bottom joint i want it to look as if it's just flowed back into the cup from the top and eventually once fired it'll look even more natural as the glaze will soften over many of these little parts and fill the line that's just above this bottom joint again i use a wetted finger just to clean up this area and to soften over any marks left from when i smeared in the clay either side i don't know if you can see this but there's a slight whitening on the inside here and just on the rim this is where the pot is just about turning bone dry and i don't want this so if i do happen to notice it at this point i just give the pot a light spray with water before placing it aside finished and this is how the cups look freshly handled you can see just how much softer the handle is as compared to the mug's body and this isn't a problem as long as you dry them out slowly so what i do is i place them on a board lined with plastic and once the board is completely full up i'll wrap them all up tightly and i'll leave them for a couple of days this allows the freshly attached handle and the mug body to slowly acclimatize to one another becoming the same consistency it's only after they've had this period of time to dry together they'll properly unwrap them and allow them to dry out totally in this instance i let them dry under wraps for five days as i actually went on a quick holiday but if you wanted you could leave them for even longer it doesn't matter really as long as you dry them out slowly and evenly that's what prevents cracks from occurring what you never want to do is to simply leave a freshly handled cup out in the open to dry overnight as there's just such a high chance that a crack will develop around the top or bottom joint as the dryer cup will continue to dry much faster than the handle can and eventually the two components will just split once wrapped up as tightly as possible i just place a kiln prop either end to hold all the plastic sheeting in place i really can't overestimate just how important it is to dry these slowly with other handling methods you may get away with it but with this it's quite rare that you will but i think i should show the handle pulling one more time as there really is just so much to discuss about this process once i'm ready to start pulling i use a cupped hand to ladle on really quite a lot of water onto the handle blank then with each pull i place my hand as far up as it'll go against the cup i squeeze the clay at the top where it's thicker and i pull it quickly down the length again alternating sides as you'll see me do every couple of pulls this ensures that the cross-section of the handle is nice and even as i don't want it to be lopsided say thicker on one side than the other then once the length is correct i reposition my left hand and almost let the handle flop into place i then take a moment to make sure it's nice and straight and then snip away any excess there might be then i can clean up the bottom join and excuse the scored in line left in the surface of the clay here although quite prominent now once glazed it'll be completely hidden for the initial blending here i just use a dry fingertip it's not wet then when most of the joining is done it's only then i switched using a wet finger to really just blend in all those little marks and smears of clay that were left over from joining it once the bottom has been joined i do go over and check the rest of the handle too so if there are any specks of clay or smears that need cleaning up around the top too i'll do them now and that's it for the handling although there is still one last thing i need to do to these before they're totally finished but that'll come in a few days once all the cups and handles have been allowed to dry out slowly together and as i don't have a damp cupboard in my studio this is generally how i keep things wrapped up for longer periods of time it works okay generally but i think in the long term if possible i would like to find some area in the studio where i can build a more permanent damp cupboard and that's all of them handled six in a bit boards worth about a day and a half worth of throwing and then two days handling i'd imagine amongst other tasks that need to be done in the studio i'm always juggling various things in this instance this is now five days later and the last thing each of these cups will receive is a really quick clean up on the base which again is done on my leather hard chuck really all i'm doing is cleaning up any tiny scratches or specks of clay that happen to get stuck into the bases of the cups during the handling process it's also a chance to correct the rim as the process of attaching and pulling a handle can sometimes distort the rim itself pulling it slightly into an oval shape so by placing it quite firmly over my very round solid chuck any distortion in the rim is immediately fixed as is forced back onto a circular shape at this point both the handle and the walls of the cup are more or less the same consistency which means they're ready to be dried out properly but first i quickly tap center them which can be tricky with the protruding handle and then just trim around this bottom edge and check for any scratches or other defects really this is just one last moment to do some quality control on the piece itself and if i do so happen to come across one which for some reason has a handle that's the wrong shape i'll just destroy it at this point as long as clay hasn't been fired it can be quite easily recycled so nothing yet has gone to waste and i think from this batch of about 166 cups initially i only lost one or two which isn't bad going it's what i expect really i then carefully pluck the cup off of the truck and set it aside quite delicately as once they've been positioned i won't touch them again until they're completely bone dry and here they all are if only i'd made enough to properly fill all the boards that would have been great but still a good batch i slowly let these dry out now over the weekend while i'm out of the studio but it's always a very satisfying moment to see all of the pieces placed together row by row all more or less identical but i suppose that'll change once they're glazed and fired each always takes on its own personality after it's been reduction fired in my gas kiln but here's how they look once finally glazed the thickness of the glaze does pad out the handle somewhat and it pools in the grooves left by my thumb in the back of the handle which i really like will be a subtle effect the glaze also unifies everything the handle looks as if it was always there the cup and handle are one and the same thing and it's certainly comfortable to hold due to its oval cross section this used to be a process that i never really look forward to but now pulling handles is really one of the things i enjoy most in the studio from the outside is such a different skill from throwing on the wheel but i think there are actually a lot of similarities anyhow i hope you found this video useful and as always thanks for watching lots more to come soon hopefully i'll see you next week you\n"