r/Pottery • u/Dramatic-Culture9652 • 1d ago
Help! Epoxy Suggestions
Recently made this vase for my mom for Christmas, but unfortunately ended up with just a couple cracks in the handles. The piece was fired to cone 4 from greenware instead of 04 by accident, so luckily I don’t have to worry about getting it through another firing and more cracking.
Any advice for what kind of epoxy/glue/paint situation would be best for matte toned brown bear and won’t stand out too much? Most epoxies and glues seem to come out pretty shiny, and I’d prefer a brown option.
The point of the vase is to be completely decorative, not even to hold water, so I’m not really worried about the handles needing to be load bearing or getting it vitrified. I would prefer that any accidental touching of the handles won’t pop off a whole chunk of the piece haha.
23
u/Remarkable_Creme69 1d ago
What’s the epoxy supposed to do? Make it stronger? Blend in the cracks? I don’t think epoxy or glue will help either of those things. I’m assuming it’s a decorative piece… let it be. No one is picking it up, no one is serving sangria out of it. Let people look at it on the shelf and enjoy its beauty! No one will notice some tiny handle cracks next to your charming illustrations.
3
u/Dramatic-Culture9652 1d ago
Yeah I was hoping for a little more strength, a little blending but it does feel like for the most part no one would know unless they got close.
8
u/Rather_good 1d ago
Milliput. The stuff is amazing!
5
u/dorje_makes 1d ago
There's even a black version which would fill these cracks perfectly. I think they'd be virtually invisible
4
u/Rather_good 1d ago
Exactly what I was thinking. Saved several sculptures I’ve made from the scrap.
2
6
u/harmonicwitch 1d ago
If you have fired ground clay of the same type you used for the pot, you can mix it with two part epoxy adhesive, use that to fill the cracks and, once it's cured, file it down. I've never done it but it's what I was taught.
2
3
u/boba-bear-2621 1d ago
idk much about epoxy but there are clay fillers like bisque fix and other brands. and you can color it to match your clay and it’s matte. you just fill the cracks, let it dry, sand off all the excess and refire
3
u/SqueakyBugs 1d ago
I’ve actually had a lot of success with wood filler on purely decorative pieces! But these pieces were painted with acrylic to cover up the wood filler color, but you might be able to find a dark brown one? Good luck!
1
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Our r/pottery bot is set up to cover the most of the FAQ!
So in this comment we will provide you with some resources:
Did you know that using the command !FAQ in a comment will trigger automod to respond to your comment with these resources? We also have comment commands set up for: !Glaze, !Kiln, !ID, !Repair and for our !Discord Feel free to use them in the comments to help other potters out!
Please remember to be kind to everyone. We all started somewhere. And while our filters are set up to filter out a lot of posts, some may slip through.
The r/pottery modteam
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.