Thank you for visiting my technical home page.
This side of the site consists of technical information for fellow potters. If you aremore interested in viewing or purchasing my work, you will find that at www.tim-thornton.com.
What's Here?
I've found that I'm more technical and nerdy than many potters, so here I am making available resources for those who want technical information, but don't necessarily have the time, inclination or skills to research it fully for themselves.
Health and Safety
Initially I am concentrating on health and safety issues, both for the potter in their studio, and for creating work that is safe and functionally satisfactory for the end user. To see the sort of topics covered, I do a post on this most Mondays on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. The information given here goes into more depth, and also gives references or links to the sources of information.
Book Reviews
I also do a book review on most Fridays on social media, picking books from the extensive pottery library that I have amassed over the years. I will shortly be copying these over to this site for ease of access, so they don't fall off the end of your social media time line.
Other Topics
There are a number of other topics that I have worked on which I will include here as time permits:
- various categories of glazes - I aim to put the recipes into Glazy, but there will be a technical discussion on the glazes here
- analysing and assessing different clays, including data sheets I have created for many of the clays available in the UK, and instructions on doing your own assessments
- wood firing. I fire the Anagama kilns at Oxford, and have found that the level of technical information on wood firing techniques is not great, so I am documenting my thoughts and findings here
Community
I'm creating a forum where members can join in and discuss topics, suggest topics they would like to have covered, ask questions, or even disagree with me! Why here and not in Facebook? I thought hard about this - I don't like the way Facebook (and the other online behemoths such as Google and Amazon) abuse personal data, so I've decided to keep this out of their hands.
You can also comment on the various pages, so people can contribute from their own knowledge and experience, or say if something isn't clear or needs more detail, for example.
Registering to Access the Site
Click on the button in the top right to either log in or register.
If registering, fill in and submit the form. You will then get an email with a link to click on to confirm that you registered, and not somebody else in your name.
You also need to sign up at Patreon, a monthly subscription service for supporting creatives, to pay US$3/month for access (or more if you wish), to support the development of the site. Once you have done this, I will authorise your registration, and you will be able to access the contents.
There is no long term commitment, so you can just dip in for a month or two, and if you find that it isn't for you, then cancel your subscription at Patreon and your access will be revoked.
Why do I charge for access? It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to research topics properly, as opposed to just copying and pasting from others' web sites - and if I need access to a scientific paper then publishers may charge around US$30 for each paper. As I am not retired, nor of independent means, your contributions help me justify devoting time to the site so that it can be a useful resource for all.
Don't Want to Join?
If you're not sure that you want to join in, you can access my work in the following ways:
<HR>
Licence
Tim Thornton Ceramics Technical by Tim Thornton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://tim-thornton.com/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Licence.
If you re-use any material from this web site, you must include an attribution statement as described in the licence, and state if the work has been altered.
You may release work that modifies or builds upon this work only under the same licence (or a compatable one, as defined in the licence).
This licence does not permit you to use this work for commercial purposes, i.e. for commercial advantage or monetary gain. If you wish to use the work in this way, please contact us to discuss it. You will need our prior permission and approval to do this.
Whilst we aim to ensure that all material is accurate at the time of publication, we do not accept responsibility for decisions based on information we make available. No content of this site may be taken to be legal or medical advice.
Please bear in mind that materials on the website are the most up to date versions, but items you have downloaded in the past may not be. The materials are updated from time to time. We recommend that you use the latest versions by referring to those published on our website.
Exclusions
Images – Images are not available for re use under the OGL because in most cases copyright is held by a third party. The Council does not grant anyone any rights to re use images.
Use of logos – The use of Tim Thornton’s logos on any document or in association with any information, signifies that the document or information has been prepared or approved by him. The logos are to be used only when reproducing materials unaltered from the web site, to show their original source. If you wish to use the logo in any other way, please contact us first to obtain permission.
Third party intellectual property/copyright – We do not have the legal authority to grant permission to re use documents where legal rights are owned by third parties.
Applications for re-use
If you wish to make a specific application to re use information which does not conform with the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence terms, please contact us to ask permission and for details of what, if any, additional conditions and/or charges may apply. Your application should be in writing, specifying your name and address and, identifying the information source you want to re-use and the purpose for re-use.
Disclaimer
Whilst every care has been taken in the compilation of this website, and every attempt made to present up-to-date and accurate information, we cannot guarantee that inaccuracies will not occur. We will not be held responsible for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of any inaccuracy or error within these pages.
Links from our site may lead to pages maintained by other organisations. These are provided purely for your convenience, and do not imply that we endorse or support those organisations, the information on their pages, or their products or services in any way. Additionally, no responsibility is assumed by us for the contents of its pages.