Im still in the process of reading all the back-posts and trying to learn that way. I made my firt couple of pieces last week. Japanese latern base and top.
They look beautiful, but seem weak on the edges. Kind of crumbly. On the thin parts you can actually knock some off with your fingers.

I was wondering if I might have added too much water, but then I thought maybe I expect thin pieces to have strength they just don't have? The top of my lantern is probably about 32" circle diameter ( molded from a really big metal wok ) Its solid . But towards the edges it gets pretty thin.
So maybe Im thinking of hypertufa wrong..Like I should consider it more of a rough/thick type medium than a fine detailed kind of thing. Actually when the pieces or areas crumble off...they look cool and aged and uneven, so maybe I should shift my expectations