Pottery Merit Badge (Boy Scouts)

• 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:
  1. Making sculpture
  2. 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:
  1. Make a slab pot, a coil pot, and a pinch pot.
  2. Make a human or animal figurine or decorative sculpture.
  3. Throw a functional form on a potter's wheel.
  4. 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.