I O Way

Our trip to Iowa this past weekend for my cousin's wedding was pretty fantastic. It being my first time to that part of the Midwest I was charmed by the beautiful rolling cornfields, impressed by the humongous wind farms, scared to tears by the Jolly Green Giant. He's at least eighty feet tall and no joke. He could also use a couple more inches to his toga; there's not much for the imagination.
I took a short video of our epic ten hour drive from Chicago to Lake Okoboji, Iowa.

the ball mill

I've decided to build a ball mill. It's gonna be great. It's just a jar full of porcelain balls that rolls on it's side and takes a geologic process of erosion and speeds it way up. Potter's use them to grind up glaze components or homogenize raw glaze or clay or just make some loud noises for hours and hours. Simple. No problem. There are many designs, but I've taken it upon myself to try and make one that will accommodate different sized jars and thus need a variable speed adjuster of sorts. Here are some plans courtesy of an Onis Cogburn article out of an old Ceramics Monthly. I like the compact nature of this design since space in my studio is somewhat lacking.I've begun collecting parts and had meny conversations with people who know way more about electricity (the magical energy that makes lights work and my toast crispy) than I do. I even was given an old motor to use. Makes a nice grinding wheel motor but originally came from an old GE washing machine circa the 1940's. Hell yeah:
At the moment I'm trying to figure out if I can put a variable speed control switch on this motor. Cross your fingers y'all.