Everyone does it once!

Stainless steel shot is what is used in the tumbler to polish and work harden the metal clay pieces after they are fired.  The tumbler I use holds about two pounds of shot, plus the burnishing fluid and the pieces.  Now shot is little teeny tiny pieces shaped like bullets, balls and space ships and one pound of shot has thousands of these little teeny tiny pieces.  (Do you see where I'm going with this?)  I've heard of people doing this but up until now I've had a clean record with my shot.  But that all ended today when the shot exploded all over the floor as I tried to pour it back into the tumbler barrel.  Thank goodness my studio has carpeting.  The shot only "shot out" in a circumference of about six feet.  A hardwood floor would have been worse.  Darn it, my studio has carpeting.  The blue gray berber wasn't going to give up the pieces that easily.  First the little teeny tiny spaceships were darn hard to see.  And secondly, the carpet fibers wanted to grab those little teeny tiny pieces.  So, I spent part of my day in the studio, on the floor, picking up little teeny tiny pieces of shot.   (I repeated little teeny tiny pieces many times so you could experience what I was feeling.  Did it work?)

Yesterday I spilled the liver of sulfur mixture.  I'm not sure which was worse.  The pungent odor of sulfur running all over my table or those little teeny tiny pieces of shot, bouncing all over the floor.  

No one ever said it would be easy!