Pottery
The Pottery merit badge provides an introduction to pottery making, enabling Scouts to gain skill and understanding from actually creating pottery. Completing the requirements will include hands-on production of a work of art, from start to finish.
Requirements
1. Explain to your counselor the precautions that must be followed for the safe use and operation of a potter's tools, equipment, and other materials.
2. Explain the properties and ingredients of a good clay body for the following:
A. Making sculpture
B. Throwing on the wheel
3. Make two drawings of pottery forms, each on an 81/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper. One must be a historical pottery style. The other must be of your own design.
4. Explain the meaning of the following pottery terms: bat, wedging, throwing, leather hard, bone dry, greenware, bisque, terra-cotta, grog, slip, score, earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, pyrometric cone, and glaze.
5. Do the following. Each piece is to be painted, glazed, or otherwise decorated by you:
A. Make a slab pot, a coil pot, and a pinch pot.
B. Make a human or animal figurine or decorative sculpture.
C. Throw a functional form on a potter's wheel.
D. Help to fire a kiln.
6. Tell how three different kinds of potter's wheels work.
7. Visit the kiln yard at a local college or other crafts school. Learn how the different kinds of kilns work, including low-fire electric, high-fire gas or propane, wood or salt/soda, and raku.
8. Explain the scope of the ceramic industry in the United States. Tell some things made other than craft pottery.
