If you don’t want to use lugs of clay to hold your pieces down once they are centred, you can use a small paint brush dipped in water and apply the water to the wheel head where it meets the rim of the pot as it spins. Do this 2-3 times then pat down on the pot to affix it to the wheel. Then you can trim without lugs in the way. To remove the pot from the wheel, you can use a metal rib or sometimes you can just hold the pot firmly as you slowly spin the wheel.

Knowing this about glazes makes me appreciate even more the Arvada Center where I do ceramics because all of their glazes work on all the clay bodies I've ever used from Porcelain to very groggy dark clays and everything in between. It must take an enormous amount of testing to achieve that. Also explains why there's rarely a new glaze for us to use.

Lisa, it sure seems to me that you picked up tap centering quickly. Just found your channel this morning. “Are you crooked again? Get it together”… subscribed!

So sorry that happened to you with that dark clay 😢

Good job on even trying to tap center! 💪🏻

As an alternate method of centering for trimming, I will from a diamond with my thumbs and pointer/middle fingers and "center" the pot on the wheel head, it's worked well for me and uses a skill we already know. Thanks Lisa!

Concerning keeping the extruder cleaner and easier to remove clay from the inside. The studio I work at has us coat the inside and the dies with WD-40. The clay comes out easier and it burns off in the bisque firing.

Thanks for the awesome stickers you sent. They are the best!😊

I have always wanted to understand the chemistry behind glazes. Wednesday I found Steve Browns YouTube about glazes and it's really good and I got it finally. I don't know how much you know but I thought he was good.

I took y list of your IKEA suggestions and picked up a few things. Very inexpensive. Thanks for the research

FYI, I ended up getting a scott creek clay extruder.  I have used yours in our local pottery studio.  The scott creek works so much better.  It has a ton of adjustment on the pull height.  Just an fyi for your viewers that are considering buying an extruder.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but you got some banding issues with your video. There is slight rolling dark spot. Check to see if the camera you use has a setting for NTSC/PAL and make sure it is set to NTSC. This usually fixes it. I don't recall any of your other videos having this issue, but I didn't go back and check.

As for tap centering. There are multiple ways to get the feeling for it down, and one is using rhythm. Going really slow is harder. You want to be spinning at a speed that you would feel comfortable tapping your finger to a drumbeat. One rotation a second would be one tap per second. Going slower than that is kind of hard to build a rhythm. To find the rhythm, you can have your non-tapping hand on the opposite side to lightly touch the piece and start doing a 1-2 count. When it touches your off-hand, that is your 2-count. So, tap on 1, count on 2. You might have to adjust where you make contact for your 2-count.

For taller pieces, you always tap at the base. If you want to center a rim vs the base, you just adjust where you feel for the 2-count at. Tap centering is magical and fun once you get it down. I actually enjoy practicing it and being able to center off of different parts of the pot has been very helpful when something I make dries a bit wonky. There are plenty of videos giving different tips if this isn't making sense.

I've never had good results with any of the dark clay bodies. They always bloat, even if i reduce firing down to cone 5. I've seen beautiful pieces with dark clay, but never when they are completely glazed. So, they're wonderful for vases, etc... but maybe not for food ware. Maybe leave the outside unglazed???

lol.. this is totally on my bucket list to learn.  side note. the 3 jaw chuck is a design thats about 200 years old. its been used on lathes and other milling type machines forever. Not sure what the technicality that allowed giffen to patten theirs.

Where did you get the shelf holding all the bats next to your wheel?