Teapot Handles

I'd like to show how to make some teapot handles today. I have a teapot that's ready for a handle and I'd like to show you how to do one that arches over the piece. This one is stretched thinner, twisted. You can take something like this, cut it apart, and make something like this. It's all in the details, little things and attachments. So this is three pieces that have been put together. Very important for the balance. You want it far enough apart, away from the handle, to easily take the lid off. Another kind of handle would be a cane handle. Now this one is attached with two lugs on either side. And again, pay attention to the space. You can buy these in all different sizes and even make them. Here's another teapot with a cane handle. Two lugs, plenty of space to get the lid off. I'm going to start by pulling a handle. Nice piece of plastic clay. Start up high and this has to be pretty long. Keep turning and pulling, turning and pulling. Little pieces will come off, but that doesn't matter. So I have it as where I want it for the widest point. Now you go down halfway and taper it a little bit. See how it's going a little bit thinner part of the way down. Now I'm going to change the shape of my fingers and turn and pull it down. This all depends on the size teapot you have. This is quite a long one. I'm taking my fingers and making a spine on the back of this. Take this and you can let it hang while you get the next step ready. And that is a board to hang it and get it dry. I've already got one right here ready to go. What you do is you pinch off your piece and let it take a natural curve. Squish it on the end. You can make a lot of these. Make sure this is bigger and wider than you need. I just let those dry naturally. Of course you can hand build. That would be just a simple way of making a coil. So just roll, move your hands out, just like when I was pulling it to the diameter of the width that you want. If you have finger marks on it, you can just roll it and get rid of those. Like I said, it's a pretty big teapot. Now I'm going to just roll one end to thin it out. I'm moving my fingers. Just flatten this out. Taper it so it goes thicker to thinner with a rolling pin. I'm going to put some grooves in it using a stick. Cut those grooves. Then I'm going to twist it just to make it a little more interesting. Now I could let this hang and get a nice teapot handle. I can also flatten this out. To do that, it's like throwing a slab. So you take one end and throw it down so it'll hit here and stretch. Turn off the table so it doesn't stick. And there. You can see what happened. Soften it just a little bit and let it hang into the shape that I want. If you're in a hurry, you could always dry these with a hair dryer or a heat gun. Now I'm going to let them dry and come back and attach it and finish the teapot. I got my teapot and I'm ready to put a handle on it. It's a nice leather hard. I added the spout, I trimmed it, got the lid on, and now I have to decide on a handle. Now the handles can be lots of different things. The simplest one would be a cane handle like this. And what you need to do is make a couple lugs. Just make sure that they're strong enough for the cane and also make sure they're far enough away from the lid so you can get the lid easily on and off. Now the kind I showed you last time was an overhead handle. And what I did is I pulled some and I also took one and made it on the table. This one was stretched so it's flat on one side and has the pattern on the other side. This one, I pulled it and before I hung it to get the shape, I twisted it so it has that nice twist to it. It feels good. You have to be careful about checking it before you put it away to fire. See how your hand feels on it, how the balance is. Don't pick it up. Remember that. So I've got my handles here. I let hang until they get to leather hard. So this is the way they look right now. There's one. Here's another. Trim off all this stuff. Let me trim some of that off and see what it looks like. I don't know about that one. It's a little lumpy in there. Let's look at the other one. Let me bring this down just a little further onto the body for a better grip. Now, if you can't get to putting these on right away, make sure you keep the ends soft. So you can do that simply by just dipping them in some water and then covering them up really tight until you're ready. That one has a nicer shape. Get the lid on and off pretty easily. Trim this at a bit more of an angle. Now, tilting it forward like that gives it kind of a nice look. I think I'll leave that. Okay. Push this down a little bit. Now, very important you line it up with the spout so it's not off to one side or the other. Now, I could put it up here. I could put it down here actually on the spout. I think I like it on the spout. I'm going to go there and there. Line it up, mark it and score. These are both leather hard so I need to score and slip both pieces. This one I'm going to just dip just a little bit. Let it absorb that water. Slip on there. Slip. Scratch it again so it's really worked in. Attach. Center. Give it a good press. That slipped losing out. Get the lid off just a little bit. Now, this is still just a little bit soft in the body. That's a thin body so pushes in. I like that because I've got these creases here. Make sure it's straight. The arc. Tweak it a little bit here and there and finish it off. Now, details. Details. These little sponge brushes are great for getting the slip out of the little cracks and crevices and remember if you leave that slip in those joints, that slip shrinks more than the clay that's already there and what will happen is you'll get a crack right at the seam. Won't hurt the integrity of the pot. It'll just hurt the looks of the pot. Now, I have choices where I can blend this in. The concept is to try to make it look like it's part of the pot that's growing out of the pot and just, you know, keep turning it, looking at it and turning it. Now, I have a weak area right in there. I could leave it. I don't mind the look of that but you can also take a little piece of clay, wet in there just a little bit and fill in that gap. I'm using a round coil so that way I won't trap air in there. Pack that in and whatever tool works. You don't need any specific special tool. You just kind of grab the one that fits your needs at that moment because all these tools are are just extensions of your hands. Now, if you do add soft clay like I just did, make sure that you pack it in and make sure you don't trap air and make sure that you cover it up and let all the moisture equalize before you put it out to dry totally. Now, other things you can do. I could add a piece here, give it extra strength and change the look a little bit. You can try all these things. You can add a thumb hole. Now, think about where you want it. It would be right about here. So, make a ball of clay. All right. Put it on the table and squish it down and if you decide you like that, score and slip it on. I think I like the handle clean so I'm going to just leave that off. Now, the last thing I'm going to do with this teapot, besides kind of go over it and clean it up and look at all the, you know, transitions and joints and, you know, making sure everything's good, is I'm going to poke a little hole in the lid. Now, that little hole, some people put a great big one in. I just put a small one in and a needle hole and the reason for that is it allows the air to go into the pot as the liquid's going out. So, that way it'll pour smoothly instead of going glug, glug, glug. So, I just put the needle in there, turn it and this side I clean off the little burrs and set that side too. It doesn't have to be large. What you do when it comes time to glaze is you don't want glaze to fill in that hole. So, what you do is you dip your needle tool, and this is after bisquiring, dip your needle tool into the wax and you get a drip of wax on your needle tool and you just let it flow into that hole. It'll flow in, fill it up, you glaze the piece, there won't be any glaze in that hole, and you'll still have the hole after the firing. Check it out. Okay, thank you. Having too much fun doing this.