My first throw in Standard’s 563 was interesting. It centered fast, and threw smooth. The texture of the clay was great, but the particular batch this bag is from seems to be a little overly moist. The clay has no structure… it isn’t good for throwing wide bowls at this point (but as with all clays, it will stiffen with some time). I threw one wide bowl in it, which had difficulties with staying even, it attempted to slump. In future wide throws I will spend some time giving the clay a serious wedging first. After the failing of the wide throw I tried for something I had problems with on 105G recently, bottles. 563 works beautifully for bottles. It is a very plastic clay that goes where I point it. It’s properties are very similar to that of 105 in that it is a very smoothly workable clay, but 105 has never given me the type of finish that 563 has. Just a simple rubbing of the metal rib before running the wire under gave me a really beautiful, almost burnished appearance.

I am going to continue working  with 563. I feel that once I learn its properties I will be well on my way to throwing whatever I want in it.