Prevent Warping Ceramics

While both cracking and warping plague tiles plates and other flat pieces.

Prevent warping ceramics.

Placing a second piece of plywood over the tile adds just enough weight to lightly compress the tiles and helps prevent warping. Making ceramics is a science. For more technical detail on the factors contributing to clay memory and ceramic warping check out the september 2019 issue of ceramics. Keep pieces away from the edge of the kiln.

Grog usually makes clay less likely to warp. You may be wondering what exactly happens to clay when it is fired material first let s talk about the chemistry of clay. You may even want to build moats around the piece to ensure even drying. The better you understand the technicalities of the process the easier it will be for you to prevent accidents such as cracking and warping.

Porcelain is especially difficult to throw without warping. Use the right clay body. Tiles and slabs will shrink while drying so use enough weight to hold them. Cracks particularly bottom cracks are more prevalent in bowls vases mugs and other upright pieces.

This might require experimentation but some bodies just warp a lot more. It explains the idea of clay memory and how this affects the ceramic piece both through drying and. Clay is a natural.