Miekal And on tue 7 jan 97
Ive just joined the list recently & have a lot of questions. My
background is in publishing, performing, writing & most of the
conceptual arts, & have just recently gotten into the wonders of clay.
We are focussing on creating clay music instruments from clay dug in the
back yard & collected locally. We have been playing around with our
clay for a couple months, testing it out. In its pure state, which is a
brownish clay, it has been been firing well, without a lot of cracking,
shrinkage. There is some cracking in the thin areas, or where parts are
added on with slip. We have been able to fire it to ^2 with no problems
(& actually for ocarinas, most people fire at ^04). We have recently
added a grog & goldart in equal portions. While it makes the clay fire
a bit nicer it doesnt cure the cracking & the clay has become a bit less
plastic. We also have access to a bright red clay that is completely
plastic, tho it seems to have white specks of limestone(?), gypsum (?)
which cause it to rupture. Is there a slick way to separte the clay
from the impurities? & are there other ammendments that I might try
with this earthenware clay.
Im also very interested in aging & souring but I can never get far
enough with clay digging to actually have a stash that is more than a
few weeks old. Is there an optimum temp to store clay at in order to
encourage souring? Are all souring ingredients equal? Ive tried beer,
vinegar & piss.
Miekal And
--
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Dreamtime Village website: http://net22.com/dreamtime
QAZINGULAZA: And/Was/Wakest website:
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e-mail for DT & And/Was: dtv@mwt.net
Tadeusz Westawic on wed 8 jan 97
> Miekal And wrote:
> Im also very interested in aging & souring but I can never get far
> enough with clay digging to actually have a stash that is more than a
> few weeks old. Is there an optimum temp to store clay at in order to
> encourage souring? Are all souring ingredients equal? Ive tried beer,
> vinegar & piss.
I use the cold coffee left in my mug when I am ready for refill. Anyone
working an office who forgets to dump their coffee on Friday knows how
quickly the bacteria and mold starts to grow.
Tadzu -- With a beautiful dusting of snow in SW New Mexico.
Jim Horvitz on wed 8 jan 97
Check the acoustical pots that the ancient Peruvians made. They did a lot of
research on this 10-15 years ago at UCLA. Regards Jim Horvitz
Tony Hansen on thu 9 jan 97
> Is there a slick way to separte the clay
> from the impurities? & are there other ammendments that I might try
The best way is to slurry it with a good mixer and screen it wet. It will pour t
50 mesh sieve fairly easy if it is fine. If it is cracking you can cut the plast
some non-plastic kaolin. Some flint filler might be good too. If you mix enough
ingredients with the slurry you should be able to get a good working consistency
--
=================================================================
Tony Hansen, IMC - Publishers of INSIGHT/FORESIGHT/Magic of Fire
Get INSIGHT 5 beta at http://digitalfire.com/insight5.htm
Fay & Ralph Loewenthal on fri 10 jan 97
> Miekal And wrote:
> Im also very interested in aging & souring but I can never get far
> enough with clay digging to actually have a stash that is more than a
> few weeks old. Is there an optimum temp to store clay at in order to
> encourage souring? Are all souring ingredients equal? Ive tried beer,
> vinegar & piss.
The souring is not the criteria, but getting the bacteria to mature your clay is
I use organic compost activator. We get it in little packets that is enough for
2 tons of compost. The activitator can be obtained from hardware or nurseries.
I have heard that some people use Yoghurt to speed up the bacterial action.
Good luck Ralph
Tadeusz Westawic on fri 10 jan 97
A garden variety hose with pressure nozzle works very well to get clay
through window screen quickly. The times I have done this I found that
you can use less water and spend more labor, or use more water and less
labor. My preference is spending half an hour a day at it for a week or
so, rather than one or two days at hard labor.
1. Thoroughly dry out the raw diggings in slabs. Dried out clay in slabs
crumbles nicely when slaked. I put my dug materials in trashbag-lined 5
or 10 gallon buckets. If its crumbly to pebble size (down to 1"
diameter) then I just spread it and let it dry in that state. If it will
not crumble that small, then I wet the stuff while still in the bag,
come back in a few days and cut to slabs with a monster cutting cable (a
large size cutting wire). The the slabs are laid out to dry.
2. Slake the slabs by completely immersing them water. Don't use a deep
container if you love your back, you will be scooping out the material
later.
3. Set-up your main processing equipment. 40-50 gallon Rubbermaid
industrial grey trash receptacles are ideal barrels. A local hardware
store (True Value) carries them here. They are the only ones I've used
that don't eventually leak or break down in the sun's UV.
Put your 40-50 gallon vessels up on some low platform, 8" cinder block
works for me. Locate the rig with drainage in mind as there is a lot of
siphoning-off of waste water involved.
You will also be separating out the junk, which may be more than half
your raw ore, so have your wheelbarrow handy if you need to transport
it.
You will need one VERY HEAVY GUAGE steel screen or some kind of grating
to support the plain aluminum window screen over the mouths of your
processing barrels. This must comletely cover the mouth of the
processing vessel. Don't skimp on this piece of equipment as if you use
a "bendy" piece you will be making more work for yourself. The aluminum
window screen goes on top of the grating screen.
The afore-mentioned garden hose with "gun" type adjustable spray
pressure nozzle.
One "blunger". Mine is 5-foot length of galvanized 1" diameter pipe with
a threaded flange at one end. This is no more than $10 at plumbing
supply. My flange is about 5" in diameter. A mason's cement mixing hoe
should work, or even a garden hoe. At last resort, use a toilet plunger
on a long handle for your blunger.
Finally, a good rubber screed. The best one I've come across is the 8 or
10 incher that comes with a "Speedball" brand silk-screening kit. You
may also want a pair of industrial thickness rubber gloves.
4. Turn on your water and set spray to a cone that is say, 4 inches wide
at 6 inches away from nozzle. It's not really that important, you'll
find the ideal setting as you work the raw materials. Use only as much
water pressure as you need, too much water pressure will speed the
separation but will fill your vessels too quickly (you'll see what I
mean). Scoop generous amounts of your completely slaked diggings onto
the aluminum window screen and work it with the screed and the spray and
the gloves simultaneously. When you reach the "point of diminishing
returns", dump the separated junk into the wheelbarrow, hose-off the
screen away from your barrel and scoop another batch of raw material and
start again.
5. Continue with step 4 until water level in barrel permits no more
processing. Then go wash your face and have a cup of coffee, you're done
for today.
6. Next day, siphon-off clear water in barrel and repeat steps 4 & 5.
The material I was processing required 2 days to settle between
siphonings. Repeat this until you have about three fourths barrel of
clay material.
7. Blunging. Insert your blunger into barrel and churn the material in
the barrel thouroughly. This step is to thoroughly mix the batch of
stuff in the barrel. Too thick a mix will not allow a uniform
suspension, which can bomb you back to step 1, so too thin is better
than too thick. Churn the stuff for a good 10 to 15 minutes, you can
pause for breath.
8. Now let the stuff settle for a couple days. Grainy particles such as
sand will settle to the bottom of the barrel. Above the sand and up to
the clear water is your clay "paydirt".
9. Insert your siphon hose to no less than one and one half inches above
the top of the sandy level in your barrel and siphon your clay into
another single barrel or bucket (SEE NOTE BELOW ON SIPHONING). The depth
above the sand is important as you don't want the syphon to suck up the
sand (after all, it may not be sand but fine limaceous granite
particles). It is imprtant to siphon ALL the material from that depth up
to the clear water as the particle sizes grade down coarser to finer as
the depth varies deep to shallow. So you have to get it all and get it
all into a single vessel as one batch. I shoot the siphon at a glaze
sieve occasionally to insure no "sand" is getting sucked up.
10. Let the batch settle and siphon or evaporate off the excess water
until you have a handleable "muck". Scoop the muck onto plaster of paris
to suck-out rest of water until the stuff is wedgeable. I use throwing
bats for this, making a sandwich with two bats as bread and muck as
filling. Then wrap saran wrap around sides only and turn on edges,
leaving flat surfaces of bats open to air.
NOTE: To prime your siphon without ever using your mouth, fill your
siphon hose with water (no air bubbles please). Holding water in hose
with thumbs, insert draw end to proper depth in liquid to be siphoned
and release thumb. Put drain end wherever you intend drainoff to go and
release thumb. Ain't it amazing?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Okay, it reads like a LOT of work, but its really not as it is spread
over a week or a week and a half. It is also not much more work to do a
large batch than it is to do a small one. Also, having said all that
above, I now confess that I was processing some stuff I was using as a
glaze ingredient that had only some clay in it. Clay is cheap, but I
find a unique glaze very exciting and well worth the effort.
Good luck,
Tadzu
-------------------------Original message----------------------------
> > Is there a slick way to separte the clay
> > from the impurities? & are there other ammendments that I might try
>
Miekal And on sat 11 jan 97
Subject: Re: hand dug earthenware clay from the driftless region
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Check the acoustical pots that the ancient Peruvians made. They did a
lot of
research on this 10-15 years ago at UCLA. Regards Jim Horvitz
------------------------------
There is a web site of just such things as
http://www.roadrunner.com/~maraz/peruwhistles.html
But there is actually amazingly little on the web about ocarinas, they
are instruments that anyone can play with just a few minutes of fooling
around, & they are even being made of concert calibre, tho this is still
far from our dada kabuki methods. Miekal
--
@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#
Dreamtime Village website: http://net22.com/dreamtime
QAZINGULAZA: And/Was/Wakest website:
http://net22.com/qazingulaza
e-mail for DT & And/Was: dtv@mwt.net
Bill Amsterlaw on sun 12 jan 97
There is a good discussion on processing local clay by Miska Persham, "Using
Natural Clays" in CM, Summer 1994, p.100.
- Bill Amsterlaw (wamster@msn.com)
Plattsburgh, NY
Bill Amsterlaw on wed 15 jan 97
Dear Clayart:
Sorry! Kevin Hluch (hope I am spelling it right) informed me that I
misspelled the name of the author of the CM article I cited. I should have
written:
There is a good discussion on processing local clay by Miska Petersham "Using
Natural Clays" in CM, Summer 1994, p.100.
- Bill Amsterlaw (wamster@msn.com)
Plattsburgh, NY
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