FAMILY

Slabrollers  

A slabroller can be an excellent addition to your ceramics program. Even an elementary school can benefit from a smaller light-duty slabroller. You might suggest to your district art coordinator that buying one or two that would be available on a check-out system is a good idea. A portable slab roller may be constructed quite inexpensively from a North Star Slabroller unit, some plywood, and miscellaneous hardware as shown below.

If you’re in a junior high or a high school, you’ll definitely want to put a slabroller on your request list. This piece of equipment is just as important as a wheel. Much like you can make pinch pots or coil pots, you can certainly do slab work with a rolling pin. However, a slabroller (which can run anywhere from $450-$2500 depending on brand and model) can really assist your students in creating slab-built projects much easier, quicker, and with better, higher quality results.

A 24" North Star Slab Roller with "wings" of plywood added to each side to make a tabletop surface when layed down. The plywood is mounted so the top of the plywood edge closest to each side of the roller unit is level with the top surface of the bottom roller. In these pictures the gentle slope from the ground up to the roller unit reduces possible stress to the clay, although you can also add supports to the underside of the plywood's outside edge to prop it up to level if you choose. Hinges and metal rods on each side allow the plywood to fold up together for easy portability, aided by the hand grips cut out of the plywood. This configuration fits easily into the trunk of medium to large vehicles or even in the back seat of smaller cars. TIP: This modified, portable slab roller still needs space for a handle to hang down below the surface a little. This is designed to be used on TOP of a table, pulled toward the front edge of the table so the wagon wheel handle extends below the table surface.

We sell two main brands of slabrollers:

1. Brent slabrollers have been in use for a very long time and are backed by the quality Brent name. However, my repair technician spends an awful lot of time changing out the cables on Brent Slabrollers. This is a result of the user trying to roll a huge lump of clay into a slab. This machine is intended more to smooth and refine a slab rather than create one. Therefore, the Brent slabroller should only be used with good teacher supervision.
2. North Star slabrollers have been designed to withstand hard use. Do not be misled by the lower-than-other-brand prices. Even their standard machines would be considered heavy-duty by most people’s standards. They are available as a package which includes the table (the design of which allows for the slabroller to be easily removed and both sides of the table to be pushed together to create a nice 4’ work surface), or can be purchased as just the slabroller alone to be attached to an existing table, (which can be a good choice if you are having an art room built from scratch). The super duty machines are built to withstand the most rigorous use.

For your convenience, we have separated slabrollers into 2 categories on our website. The individual items within these catagories have more detailed & specific information as well as lots of pictures:

1. Small to Average Usage Slabrollers includes Brent Mini SRC, SRC, SR-14, SR-20, Northstar 18” Slabroller, 24” Slabrollers (both Standard and Super, sold separately and as a package) and the 30” Standard slabroller (sold separately and as a package).
2. Large or Heavy Duty Slabrollers includes Brent SR-36, Northstar 24” & 30” Super slabrollers (sold separately and as a package), and 36” Standard and Super slabrollers (sold separately and as a package).

Extruders  

An extruder can be an extremely useful and also relatively inexpensive addition to your request. They run from $300-1500 depending on brand and model.

We sell extruders from two main manufacturers:

1. Brent extruders, like their other equipment are quality products, most of which are built with student use in mind. A nice feature of these is that you can buy a bracket-type thing that will attach a Brent extruder to a Brent slabroller.
2. NorthStar extruders maintain the high level of quality that exists in all their products. Not only do they make the standard 4” extruder, available alone or in two different packages, depending on how many dies you want, but they also make a 6” extruder which they call their Big Blue. (I of course like this model a lot having graduated from KU - Go Big Blue!)
3. Scott Creek also makes a fine inexpensive extruder in three sizes: 3”, 4” and 5”. They also have a Clay Gun that is larger than the Kemper Klay Gun and can be perfect for a small elementary school who can’t really afford an extruder. They also have lots of dies available, including some multi=shape dies. If you’re wanting even bigger extrusions, the 4” and 5” models have expansion Boxes available producing an output of 6.5” X 6.5” and 8” X 8” respectively. (A wide variety of dies are also available for the expansion boxes.)

For your convenience, we have separated extruders and extruder accessories into 3 categories on our website. The individual items within these catagories have more detailed & specific information as well as lots of pictures:

1. Small or Average Usage Extruders includes the Brent Handex Extruder, the Northstar Stainless Steel Extruder (sold with Basic Die Set, packaged with the Basic & Accessory die kits, or packaged with the Basic & Accessory die kits & 21 extra hollows and 4 solids), Scott Creek 4” Extruders (both steel & Aluminum models) the 4” Expansion Box, and the Scott Creek Clay Gun
2. Large or Heavy Duty Extruders includes the North Star Big Blue Extruder, the Scott Creek 5” Extruder and the 5” Expansion Box
3. Extruder Dies and Die Sets includes approximately 50 extruder dies, accessories and parts.

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