How much time does it take to make a mug?

The most common question at Christmas markets is always, ‘how long does it take to make?’

At a late night studio session yesterday, with my Uber 4 minutes away, I realised that I can attach a handle in 5. Ish.

There’s a few ways of working out how long a mug might take to make. I usually guesstimate for my wholesale orders - I can commit to making 15-20 mugs within 4 weeks. That’s on top of full time work, so I could probably make them quicker if I was in all the time - and it’s also considering that I’ll make 25 mugs and choose the nicest for the order.

Thinking about hands-on time per mug, though…

3 mins to wedge and weigh
8 mins to throw (+ 10 years practice)
2+ days to dry a little, turning upside down
5 mins to trim the foot
6 mins to make and attach handles
4 days of slowly drying under plastic
———
18 hour firing to 1000°c (called a bisque fire)
———
2 years testing glaze fit and colour effects
10 mins to make the glaze, checking viscosity with a timer

30 seconds to wax the base, 2 mins to dry
20 seconds to pour the inside and dip the outside of the mug in glaze
——-
22 hour firing to 1220°c, cone 6 (called a glaze fire)

Hands on time per mug: 23 minutes, plus moving them from place to place.

Drying time : 6 days monitoring drying - varies depending on weather and humidity. In winter things just stay wet forever!

40 hours in the kiln

Total time it takes to make a mug: 185 hours, or 7.7 days.

That’s obviously not including all the studio cleaning, years of learning to throw, practice, testing or hours that goes into recycling the trimmings into fresh wet clay! 😅