Pottery- How to Put a Handle on a Mug

Hey, it's Janice Hughes. I'd like to show you today how I go about putting handles on my mugs. There are a lot of different ways to do it, a lot of different styles of handles, a lot of different styles of mugs for that matter. I'm going to be doing an extruded handle that I made out of a custom die that I made that's based on a pulled handle shape, but you could do a pulled handle the same way or potentially even a coil or slab handle, so check it out. I'm going to use these tools. I have a Kitchen Lazy Susan here just to help me. You can use that. You could use your wheel head. You could use all those things, a banding wheel. I've also got magic water. This is to help things stick together. You can find the recipe online and read about why it works. I also have some slip made out of my same clay body that has some magic water in it. I have a serrated rib that I use for scoring and a fettling knife. I've already thrown my mugs and already extruded the handles. I'm pretty sure today that I want about a five inch handle, so I've already cut the bottom edge of this at a bevel. This is going to be the top of the handle, so I'm just going to measure it out and then cut the top part off. I cut it at an angle. You can see the bottom part is cut one way, the top part the other. I'm going to put the top angled part down, hold that flat. That gives me the curve of my handle. Kind of straighten it out, tweak it a little bit. That's basically what my handle is going to look like. This is fairly soft leather hard. It's pretty easy to mar up, so you've got to be careful while you're handling it. There's my handle. I'll pick out a mug body here that I've already thrown. Now I've already cleaned the bottom up, gotten it finished off, stamped, done pretty much everything that I want to do to it except get the handle on there. I'm going to take a look at this very closely all the way around and see where I want to drink out of it, what I think is the prettiest to look at, and then determine where the handle is. Sometimes it's a hard decision. I think I like this side right here to drink out of. That means I'm going to have to put the handle over here. Let's take a look at what we have to work with. When possible, I like to keep the top of my handle below the top of the rim of the lip. It helps me with glazing, and then if you want to turn it upside down to sit in your cabinet or to dry or in the dishwasher, it just sits better than the handle's jutting up. So I think I like it right there. So I'm going to hold it on there, turn it toward me, make sure it's lined up and not crooked. I'm going to use my settling knife either side and the bottom. I don't know if it'll show up on camera, but I've basically got mine here. So that's where I'm going to score. First I'm going to score the handle. Just use my serrated rib, score up and down and sideways. I'm going to score my mug. The mug is on a pretty dry side of leather hard. It would probably be best if it were a little bit more moist, but it's okay. So now, as with all the things that I show you guys, this is just the way I like to do it. There are a lot of different ways that you can do it. So I like to hold the handle and the mug, put magic water on the handle where I scored it, magic water on the mug where I scored it. I'm going to come back with slip, slip on the handle and slip on the mug. I like to hold the mug like this because if I don't, my slip is just going to ooze everywhere. Now I'm going to take the handle and place it on here. I'm going to take a look from the side, but also straight on and make sure it's straight and then take a look up and down and make sure it's not leaning over to one side or the other. I think it looks okay. I'm pleased with where it is. I'm going to go ahead and start blending it in. My finger wet with some magic water. This time I'm going to start at the top. Just start smoothing in the clay from the handle into the body of the mug. These drips are okay. I'm going to go back and smooth it later. I'll smooth it right out with the wet slip. Meanwhile you've got plenty of slip. Make sure this is joined well. I like to really work in and make it part of the body of the mug and not just this appendage that's hanging off the side. I don't like it to feel like one integrated piece. Just a personal preference. Now as I mentioned, the body of the mug is definitely drier than the clay in the handle. That's okay because I'm going to cover them when I'm done and make sure it dries really slowly and it evens out. And also the handle, because it's just out there in space, tend to dry out faster than the body of the pot anyway. So they'll catch up, the handle, to the dryness of the mug. And if one of them has to be dry, this is the better option. If the handle is too dry, you're almost guaranteed to get cracks. The seam is where you join. Taking a look at the curve to see if there's anything I need to adjust. I don't want any harsh angles in it. I want a nice sweeping curve. Let's see if there are any big boo-boos I got on here that I need to smooth out now. And the last thing I'm going to do is take some slip. I'm going to work it down into the top side of these joints. This is going to act as a filler and it's going to reinforce that seam. It's going to make it nice and smooth when it lays. Don't worry, I'll show you in a second. I put it on pretty liberally and I like to dab in there to make sure there aren't any air pockets that don't show up until it dries out. And you just have to add more again. So once this is a little drier, I will come in with a wet sponge and smooth out all these finger marks and smudges that I have on here. But for now, I'm just going to let these guys dry. One last look. We've got a three-finger handle there. It would be good for anybody's hand, big or small. Looks good. I tried to go with the curve of the pot. And that's how that works. I hope this was helpful, you guys. See you later. Bye.