Saggar did the same on a smaller scale, constructing the round or banjo-shaped bottom. Again the mow was used to beat the air out of the clay and flatten the sheet. The saggar maker was an experienced craftsman who paid his assistants out of his piece-work earnings: he took the bottom and the sides onto a wheel and using his thumbs joined the sides to the bottom. The "green" saggars were dried and then placed on the top of bungs during the next firing of the kiln. The unfired ceramic ware was placed in saggars and then biscuit fired, before being
Saggar glazed and again placed in saggars prior to being glost fired. Ware may then be decorated, and placed on refractory "bats" and fired again such as in a muffle kiln. A "Saggar Maker's Bottom Knocker" was a name considered sufficiently amusing for it to be featured on the television panel show What's My Line?. Whilst saggar making was a skilled craft, bottom knocking was far less skilled, consisting of beating clay into a metal ring. From the twentieth century studio potters have used saggars to create decorative ceramic pieces. In this use saggars are used to create a localised reducing