April 10, 1994

In the hot shop on Sunday, doing some steam sticking. This is a little trick to help puff out the volume of a vessel. A wooden cone is kept in a bucket of water, so that it's completely waterlogged. The vessel is attached by a punty on the bottom, and allowed to cool to the point where it isn't completely slumping, but not so cool that it can't still be worked. The piece is hung upsided down from a rack, open end down, and the saturated cone is inserted into the opening, until it seals the opening. The intense heat of the glass immediately vaporizes the water in the wood, creating steam which pushes out the sides.