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Warning: I keep seeing people at the studio blow their first gather way too thin

I was at the open studio in Asheville last weekend and watched three people in a row pull their initial gather off the pipe before it was even 1/2 inch thick. It makes the whole piece unstable from the start and you can't add enough heat later to fix it. How do you guys judge when that first gather is thick enough to start working?
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2 Comments
caseyfox
caseyfox9h ago
A super thin gather can actually be a good starting point for some detailed work. It gives you more control over the initial shape before adding mass. The instability you mention just forces you to work faster and more carefully, which isn't always a bad thing.
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wilson.jana
My first gather is always so thin I could read a newspaper through it.
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