Work has continued apace this last week or so. I got a little bit of a shock last week when I realised that the earliest nectarine tree in the new orchard had already had the first bud burst. I have been so busy that I hadn’t been spending much time in the new netted stone fruit orchard. I realised that I needed to take a couple of days off working in the pottery to prune all the stone fruit trees in the netted orchard, and then the transplanted almond trees. There is also the cherry orchard too, but it can wait another week, as they won’t have bud burst for another few weeks. 

As soon as I completed the pruning, I moved back into the studio to build the tables for the pottery.  I welded some steel frames on castors and then mounted some huge home-grown and milled pine wooden slabs on top as the bench top.

My very good friend Len, gave me all his power tools that he wasn’t using. A Planer, sander, drill and circular saw. This has made this part of my job so much easier and faster.

I made a wedging table, a low throwing table for the shimpo wheels, a taller table for display in the gallery and a glazing bench. All on steel frames and castors to allow for easy relocation in the future.
Len bought two new Japanese made, Shimpo brand, ‘whisper’, potters wheels for us. I was so moved. That was so amazingly generous! Thank you Len!
Len has done so much for us – along with so many others who have passed on spare equipment. We have been so lucky to have such generous friends. One of my past students from the early seventies who had retired from pot making 15 years ago rang me to say that he had got rid of all his pottery equipment, but he had retained his shimpo potters wheel that he bought in the late 60’s. It is an RK2 version. This was the first major purchase that he had made and confirmed his commitment to a life in ceramics and away from his career in the law.

I had an RK1 Shimpo wheel, 1 x RK2 and and 5 x RK2 ‘super’ Potters wheels in the old pottery, but really only used two of them, as we didn’t really teach any throwing classes. But we probably will in the future. As we have a better space for that kind of teaching now in the new improved space.
Tony, The Barley Broker, had kept his Shimpo, as it was so dear to him – so much attachment, even though he knew that he would never make pots again, he kept it. The Barley Broker rang me last year to say that he had his Shimpo in a shed and wanted to give it to me. He was finally ready to part with it! It was a big deal for him, but he knew me well and knew that I would both use it and value it – look after it. I hadn’t seen a ‘Volvo’ style, ‘burnt-orange’ 60’s, shimpo before in its original paint job. This wheel is over 50 years old and still goes well. I’m honoured, and I will look after it!
We have also been given another old Shimpo that was being de-commissioned by an Art School. It is from the mid 90’s and is over 25 years, it is a ‘Century 21’ ‘metallic traction drive’ version, and still works well.

Len also found Janine a 2nd hand ‘Slatcher’ kick wheel, just like the one that she used to have in the last pottery. I had bought one of these special kick wheels back in 1973. It got burnt in the pottery fire in 1983. I managed to find another one in 1984, and Janine used this wheel for the next 36 years. These hand made kick wheels are extremely rare. Mr. Slatcher didn’t make very many of these wheels, so we are so lucky to find another one.
I have always used the Australian made version of the ‘Leach style’ wooden framed, kick operated, potters treadle wheel. I was gifted another 2nd hand ‘Leach’ style wooden kick wheel recently, It was pretty dried out and desiccated. I cleaned it up, washed all the clay off and sanded the rough, dried wood and oiled it back into life.

The bearing are shot, so I will need to spend a bit of time on it to dismantle it and replace the bearings. The frame is pretty creaky, so i will probably add some metal bracing to the frame to strengthen it. I had done this to the last one that I owned.

We have been so lucky and grateful to receive all this hand-me-down, passed-on, equipment from so many people. We really appreciate all this generosity. This means that we will be able to get back to work soon and later, to offer some weekend throwing classes sometime in the future. If there are sufficient pottery students who want to come and learn here from what we have to offer.
We were also offered some other equipment from our late teachers studio. We were contacted by his widow and were given his old screw press and an old square thread, screw-driven, extruder. They were both worse for wear and needed some attention. I have spent a bit of time in the evenings working on the extruder. It turns out that it is made from an mixture of copper, bronze or brass parts. It’s a beautiful old thing, and an honour to look after it for the next little while. 

It looks fabulous now.
For dinner, we made our own hand made gyoza dumplings, using our own garden produce, carrots, parsnips, onions and a little bit of minced, low-fat, pork.

Thank you to all those people who have helped us get so far.