The versatile texturing tool designed by potter Steve Graber. This is what Steve says about the "Steve Tool": 1. I find a STRAIGHT cylinder yields a very consistent texture pattern from bottom to top of the pot. When shaped, you can get wonderful helical patterns! However, an irregular cylinder shape can yield interesting texture results also. Try various cylinder shapes before forming the pot. 2. When rolling the tool up the walls, I generally maintain a common orientation of the tool as I move up the pot. However, twisting the tool some (along the handle axis) with your hand as you move up can achieve other results to the texture. Roll the handle one way or the other. 3.A thick wall cylinder pressed hard with the Steve Tool can yield monstrous textures! But a thin walled cylinder with lightly applied texture can be effective too. Try multiple thicknesses outside your norm. 4.Stretch pots out from the inside until the walls rip open a little. Explore that region of near collapse, broken walls, torn textures! Or use the walls as a slab for hand building. 5. I try to make a demarcation line at the end of the texture zone & the beginning of the smooth regions. I like the distinction line between texture & non-texture. For this I use the wood end of a needle tool. 6. Apply a contrasting color clay slip to a leather textured pot & scrape some away later. 7. Use the texture to hold back runny glazes. Texture only the top of shoulder area and smother this with a glaze. 8. Stretch a pot till it JUST starts to collapse. Leave it sit for a while & stiffen. Stretch more. Repeat. 9. Don't forget basic shape when you explore texture. A badly shaped pot is still a bad shape with texture. Get out of your chair and review the pot from a distant angle before cutting from the wheel. 10. Apply the texture with fast or slow moving wheels. Apply the texture while running the wheel up the pot fast or slowly. Fast wheel spinning rates or slowly spinning wheels. 11. Dirty texture wheels are not necessarily bad! Sometimes I actually clean my tools. Often I don't... 12.Snip every other tooth off a wheel to explore alternate results. Or file the teeth to a radius instead of sharp corners. 13. On a STOPPED wheel head, run the roller north & south on the pot, or any other direction. Or not all around the piece. Or just glancing off the piece. 14. Cut out the textured pockets in the leather pot later for a piercing look. Re-fill the holes with beadwork or basket weaving. Or contrasting clay. 15. Use the applied texture to enable a radical chatter later while trimming the texture OFF. See and read more on Steve's website
