At the Hall China Company in East Liverpool, Ohio, anyone can go on a self guided tour of the factory. There are yellow arrows painted on the floor which directs visitors around various parts of the plant where casting, firing and decorating can be observed.
I had been on the tour twice, but in mid December 2000, Steve Sfakis, who works at Hall China, showed me around the plant explaining many of the methods and equipment. Below are some pictures taken on that day. (Update: Due to insurance considerations, self-guided tours are no longer available -- call for guided tour appointment, (330) 385-2900 Ext. 147)

This first image shows the outside of Hall China at the main office. The little red arrow points to the top of an old bottle kiln. At one time there were hundreds of these types of kilns in the East Liverpool area, however today there are only three: the one at Hall China, one along the Ohio River, and another several miles away in Wellsville, Ohio. The second picture shows the base of the Hall China bottle kiln from inside the plant. Remarkably, this kiln was still being used in the 1960s.

One of the first things we saw in the plant were various molds being made. These were being readied to be put into use. In the same area were shelves of molds of pieces no longer in production.

Hall China uses two forms of casting hollowware. In one case, wet clay or slip is poured into a mold then allowed to harden. Once the slip has hardened, excess slip is poured out and the piece is removed from the mold. Shown are teapots - each with little caddies on either side. Hall also uses automatic casting machines. Homer Laughlin uses an auto-casting machine very similar to Hall's. To view HLC's auto-caster, visit this page: HLC Tour from June 2000. The third image show an automatic finishing machine "sponging" off the rough edges and reading the piece to be placed into the kiln.