Pottery Beginner - Question about Glazing & Refiring

Hey folks!

I have a bowl I made last year that I love dearly, except for one thing: After I glazed and fired it, I realized it had too much raw clay showing towards the bottom of the piece, and as it’s the white class clay, it just isn’t pretty. It was one of the very first pieces I ever made, and I was overly cautious about leaving space at the bottom in case the glaze ran.

I have had this piece all this time, thinking it would be just perfect if I simply had glaze a bit further down on it.

I wanted to ask:

Would it be possible to just brush some glaze on the bare bits and refire it? (waxing the bottom of the piece with wax resist and no glaze of course). This would be iron lustre, which I understand isn’t much of a runner.

Would I brush this on more thinly/use less glaze/fewer layers? I’ve been reading about clay being less porous once it’s gone through a glaze firing - but wanted to check re: our community kilns.

Would layering a couple of glazes be okay if I repainted the bare parts?

Is putting any glaze on the already-glazed parts off limits?

Is there anything special I’d need to do with the piece on the shelves? (Marking it as something I’ve glazed again, refired, etc)

And obviously if reglazing/refiring isn’t permitted in our community kiln for some reason, I’d like to know that as well!

Thank you in advance for any answers!

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If it’s just making you twitchy because it doesn’t look like commercial pottery, I’d be inclined to paint the unglazed part of the bottom edge with an underglaze, or maybe 1 or 2 coats of one of the Stroke and Coat glazes if you need some shiny.

Iron lustre might be okay. I definitely would not do any layering that low on your bowl. 2 coats might work. Most of the Amaco PC glazes “move” some. Which means, they might run enough to stick your bowl to an ordinary cookie.

Adding glaze to an already glazed thing is tricky. I don’t do it myself, but some that do use a heat-gun to make the old glaze a little more receptive to new glaze, or spray the item with some hairspray so that the new glaze sticks to your slick surface long enough for both of them to get hot enough to stick together.

At any rate, when you put it on the glaze shelf for a refire, you should find either a cookie which has the feet on the top so that your bowl isn’t sitting directly on the cookie (because it’s likely to stick to the cookie), or get two cookies - one small enough that the glazed edge of your bowl isn’t sitting against it, and a larger one that will catch any drips.

I don’t think we’re requiring any special notes for refires. They’re kind of obvious.

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If you’d like to bring your piece to the glaze class on the 23rd, I’d be happy to talk through options with you. I know it full but I can certainly make some time for you

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Thank you both!

And that would be great @Monikat.

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