Chapter 52: I'm a Little Teapot
Along with the order from Girts, I attempted to take an order from the local, and only inn. Since Girts had given me over a month to produce his work, I should at least try to make a little bit more profit on the side. Any way to bolster my income would be appreciated.
The inns in this life provided shelter over the nights, and doubled as taverns and restaurants. Though to be truthful, the only people that ate at such establishments, were the travelers, only. The idea of going out to eat, is to the best of my knowledge, not something that was done.
I have heard that in larger cities, there are street stalls that do sell some food for quick consumption. As this is still an undeveloped community, with a relatively few number of people, such business has not shown up around here. The closest thing to buying food for instant consumption, away from where you live, was the goods store, that sold food meant for traveling.
Back to the inn, I was able to receive a token order. At the moment, they do not know the quality of my work, and only wanted to test the waters. So the order that I received from the inn, was for a set of four mugs, and a kettle, for tea.
Dang it, I have never made a pot with a pour spout as of yet. While I could make a hole in the pot, and then use coils to develop the spout, the interior of the spout would be left with ridges in it. It would be easier than try to throw the spout on the wheel and then connecting it, this is my first work from someone that I do not know. I need to make a good product.
Speaking truthfully, I need to learn how to make this type of pot. Most, if not all, households have a use for a simple tea pot. So, learning how to make one is mandatory.
I set the price for the tea pot, at the time of the order, at one bronze coin. More expensive than the cups, but, with the more complex design, I feel that it is reasonable. I will probably give the owner a discount, when I give him the goods, as they are still a trial product. But as for now, his total will be three bronze and eight iron coins. Knocking it down to an even three bronze, should be a fair deal.
I now have work to do, and I should get to it.
* * *
I got to the simpler products first. The bowls, plates, and cups, are simple products that will less intensive than the mugs and tea pot. With that started, I took three days to make the initial products. After letting them dry properly, I fired them for their initial firing.
After the bake and the cooling, I went back to the village and met with Girts again. As I showed him products that had not been fired, I wanted to make sure that he was fine with the size of the items, after they had shrunk a little bit during the firing. For my sake, luckily, he was perfectly fine with how they were turning out. Trust, but verify.
Onto the mugs. The shape of the body is relatively simple. That is, in comparison to making and attaching the handles to the mug.
Trying to keep a consistent thickness, length, and shape to someone still learning this part of the process, is hard. Add in to that, attaching the handle and then making it appear to be just one piece is not as easy as it seems. Maybe it is due to my lack of skills, but I was glad when I was done making them. Two dozen, nearly identical, mugs were done.
And finally, I am onto my last item that I need to make, the tea pot. I did not look forward to this. Truly, it is something that I should have tried to make, before saying I was making them to sell.
Here is the thing that I need to think about when making the pot. The pot needs to be thick enough that the heat of the liquid does not dissipate too quickly, but still I need to make sure that it is not too heavy of an item. When you need to factor in the weight of the water, needed to fill six mugs, the size of the tea pot increased to a rather large size that I needed to make.
With the pot, when full, will probably weigh over five pounds, I also need to factor in where the bulge where the spout connects to, is located. Too high in the pot, and it become unwieldy to pour the initial cups of tea. Too low, and liquid might overflow from the spout, when filling the pot.
Is there a reason why tea pot spouts are curved, or is that purely a point of design? That is one other thing that I need to research while I am making it.
I am not hugely worried about the size of the opening of the pot, and the lid that I also need to make. But with all these things that I have to consider, there is a lot of work that I need to put into making the pot. Why am I such a fool to take on work that I have not practiced before?
The worst part of making the pot, is that I realistically need to fire to pot before I can even test out the product. Why? The addition of water to a pot that has not been fired, greenware, will possibly ruin the whole piece, and not give an accurate representation of the final piece.
So, instead of just making one pot, and hoping that it works out the way I hope, I need to make several of them, and then test them all. Hooray for prototyping. While making them, I should also write down some notes, for future reference.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ApollyonDais
ApollyonDais From what I have seen on Youtube, teapots are not that hard to make. That is, if you have some guides on how to do it. Rehor is basically reinvinting the wheel everytime he creates something new. While the things are around, he is having to reverse engineer an already existing product.
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