Pottery & Ceramics Math: Clay Shrinkage, Glaze Batches, Specific Gravity & Kiln Firing Costs

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Measure four clay bodies on test tiles, separate drying from total shrinkage, look up the clay of each planned piece and work out the wet size Ines must throw to hit the fired size.
• Add up the clay for the winter-market production, count how many pieces one bag makes, take the reclaim into account and decide how many bags Ines has to buy.
• Turn a percentage recipe into batch grams for 3,000 g of dry base, put the additions on top, total the batch and re-normalise a notebook recipe that adds up to 104.
• Read the SG of four glaze buckets, flag each one as OK, Thick or Thin against its target and tolerance, and calculate how much water brings the thick Satin White back to its target.
• Turn the wet glaze each piece picks up into dry grams, add up the glaze for the next firing, count how many mugs one batch covers and decide how many batches Kofi must mix.
• Turn a four-segment glaze firing into ramp and segment times, add up the total firing time and work out the clock times when the firing ends and when Kofi can plan to unload.
• Turn kiln power, firing time and the share of time the elements are on into kWh and cost per firing, spread it over the pieces in the load and add the wear of the heating elements.
• Build the full cost of four pieces from clay, glaze, firing and labour, derive wholesale and rounded retail prices, total the quarter's studio-shop revenue and chart the units sold.