Why we changed our drop-off and clay firing service
We made a significant change this month to how our system works for dropping off pieces you’ve made at home for our clay firing service.
In everything we do, we aim to be super clear and transparent about why we do it and how we do it. We hope that this article helps novices and experienced potters alike understand what goes into the firing process, and specifically how we work to finish your pieces at Clayground!
First and foremost, the main driver of this change was the need for distance during this pandemic. We have been working to keep our studio a safe place for members, and to keep our customers like you safe, too. That requires a system where you can drop off your pieces for kiln firing, without needing enter the studio.
To be honest, we struggled at lot to maintain the level of safety we aimed for before the holidays. We had people waiting for ten minutes in the studio for us to weigh and document their pieces, and had queues of people waiting outside.
We needed to do better.
Designing a minimal-contact system
We changed the drop-off system in order to simplify the process at the studio, and avoid people waiting in queues inside. We needed to enable everyone to simply drop off pieces, and barely interact with us in person so everyone stays safe.
By filling out a Drop Off Form at home, you enable us all to minimize the time spent close together in person and indoors.
You also have the ability to calculate exactly what you will pay for glazing and firing your pieces in advance.
Changing prices based on how the clay firing service actually works
Along with changes for safety, the prices also had to change. We learned a few valuable lessons after handling hundreds of pieces dropped off for our clay firing service at the end of 2020.
The biggest lesson was that we got the pricing entirely wrong! We’d never done this before, and our first price was based on the per kilo price at other studios. The difference is that those studios were simply kiln firing those pieces – they didn’t include the costs of the service of glazing pieces themselves.
After firing hundreds of tiny pieces, we realized that the small pieces typically take the same effort as the medium ones. Sometimes the tiniest pieces are actually the trickiest to glaze and clean properly so that they don’t stick to our kiln shelves when fired!
We needed to raise the price for small pieces to properly cover the costs and time involved.
To finish all our Clay Kit customers’ pieces, we have to:
- Collect and organize the dropped off pieces during and after drop-off times
- Load them into the first kiln (Bisque kiln)
- Wait a few days to unload the first kiln (it takes hours to fire and then cool down)
- Mix the glazes
- Glaze the ceramic pieces
- Clean the bottom of each piece so they don’t stick to a shelf
- Wait for the glazed pieces to dry
- Load them into the second kiln (Glaze kiln)
- Unload them from the kiln and pack them up in a bag with your name on it 🙂
Many people have even dropped off pieces from clay that didn’t match our firing temperatures. It melted all over our kiln shelves. In those cases, we have to grind the clay and glaze from the shelves with a stone grinder. So the full clay firing service process often takes even more time and effort than expected, if one part doesn’t go perfectly as planned.
More about kiln firing temperatures in another article soon, for anyone curious to learn more!
Then a few extreme cases made us rethink the exact price amounts
Our partners Pottery Tribe had a customer come to them with a calculation that we thought couldn’t be right. The customer had nine total pieces, fitting various size classes on our Drop Off form.
Her calculation showed that her cost with the new system would go from €12 up to €63. Yikes!
This was absolutely not our goal with this price change. Yes, we do need to charge comparatively more for small items in particular. But her cost should not have gone from €12 to €63 with the new system. We did a lot of tests, and better calculations of our costs than we had at the start of our firing service. The truth is that €12 for nine pieces doesn’t even cover our costs. So her costs should not have been €12 to begin with unfortunately, but we also don’t want it to cost €63 for nine tiny pieces in most cases.
Due to more testing and a few extreme cases, we’ve adjusted a few things:
- Lower prices for Medium and Large size classes
- An addition for dealing with plates specifically, so small + medium plates don’t get charged as Large class items
- Instructions for pieces with handles (measure without the handle!)
- Increased the measurements to be a little more generous for most size classes
The logic behind the size class measurements
The size classes, and the height measurements in particular, are based on the way we pack pieces and shelves into the kiln. We’ve packed thousands of pieces into the kiln from members and our clay firing service, so we’ve gotten pretty good at estimating how many pieces of each size fit on a kiln shelf. We want to make sure we share with you exactly how it works, so you know, too!
To load a kiln, we stack up “shelf props” to hold a shelf, like little legs for support. Each individual shelf prop is 5cm high.
Stacking one shelf prop makes a shelf 5cm high. Stacking two shelf props means the height of the shelf space will be 10cm high.
Glazed pieces need to be less than the full 10cm high, or they will stick to the underside of the next shelf.
So we put all pieces that are greater than 5cm but less than 9,5cm high on this shelf. If we end up with many pieces that are 10,8cm high, for example, then we have to add another shelf prop – and this can create a lot of wasted height space in the kiln if we needed to extend the height of the shelf for just one item.
This is why we end the Small size class at 9,5cm high – so that those pieces neatly fit together in one shelf of normal height, without wasted space. And being able to group pieces together by size class helps us more easily pack more pieces into each shelf in the kiln.
The more pieces we can get into the kiln, the more energy efficient it is to run it. Plus, the more pieces we can get in, the faster we can get them finished and back to you! 🙂
We hope this helps give some insight into our latest changes and how we’re working to finish your lovely pieces at Clayground.