Duties and tasks

• Preparing work for sale or exhibition, and maintaining relationships with retail, pottery, art and resource networks that can facilitate sale or exhibition of work
• Making clay or plaster-of-paris moulds
• Adjusting wheel speeds according to the feel of the clay as pieces enlarge and walls become thinner
• Examining finished ware for defects and verifying accuracy of shapes and sizes of objects, using callipers and templates
• Operating jigger machines to form ceramic ware, such as bowls, cups, plates, and saucers
• Forming abrasive wheels by moulding and pressing an abrasive mixture by hand or by machine
• Reading technical drawings to know customer’s requirements
• Adjusting and setting controls of pug mills that mix, extrude, cut, and deposit clay charges in or over moulds as specified
• Smoothening surfaces of finished pieces, using rubber scrapers and wet sponges
• Forming articles on the potter's wheel by pressing thumbs into centres of revolving clay to form hollows, and pressing on the inside and outside of emerging clay cylinders with hands and fingers, gradually raising and shaping clay to desired forms and sizes
• Making articles of pottery and porcelain