ball.opening.01.html

PRESENTS

An ILLUSTRATED TUTORIAL

	HOW TO OPEN A BALL OF CLAY
	WITH A BALL OPENER		NEXT TUTORIAL

Here are images showing the steps to open a ball of clay with a ball opener. Because images tend to load slowly, this tutorial has been broken into several pages. As you study each page, the next page is pre-loading. It would greatly benefit you to increase the size of your browser cache. You can increase the size of the cache right now. Go to your browser's PREFERENCES. Find the cache. It is often listed on the ADVANCED page. Increase the cache size to 20 mb. That will be enough.


	WEDGED BALL		RESHAPED

A wedged ball of clay is shaped much like a conch shell or cylinder. It has a spiral grain from the rolling action of wedging. One end is likely smaller than the other. If stood on the larger end, it appears ready to throw. WRONG !!! The wedged ball needs to be reshaped into a cylinder that forces the spiral grain to expand in a new cylinder.
WHAT ?
Imagine [ draw ] a vertical rectangle. Label the two long long sides A and B. Label the top and bottom; C and D. Draw a horizontal rectangle next to the first. Label the two short sides; A and B. Label the top and bottom; C and D. THAT is what you must do to the wedged ball of call before you put it on the wheel.


	WET WHEEL	ON WHEEL

Wet the wheel head before you place the ball of clay on the wheel. You can not depend on a dry wheel head. It will let you down. If you do not wet the wheel the ball may pop off. Wetting the wheel is very important if you are using a dry wooden bat. The wood will absorb moisture from the clay. The ball will pop off.