search  current discussion  categories  tools & equipment - pug mills 

love thy pug mill as thyself...

updated fri 31 jan 97

 

Erin Hayes on thu 30 jan 97

We've got a little Bluebird pugmill that takes abuse very well in the college
studio. It sits idle for a few weeks at a time and then pugs about 500-600
pounds in a day.

Take good care of your little darling, though. Right after I was hired on,
our pugmill started extruding very slowly and sounding like it was straining
a little too much. I pulled it apart to completely clean it out to look at
it, and the junk I found in the screen still amazes me. There were three bat
pins in various parts of the screen - jammed into it, squashed against it,
scraping around under it. The augur mechanism had 7 or 8 chamois strips
wound up around it! There were bits of sponge and all sorts of garbage.

No one had ever cleaned out the poor thing, that was clear. One of the
students took the pins and made a good luck charm for the pugmill and now
there is a hardware cloth screen over the slop bin to keep out the foreign
invaders.

It speaks worlds about the Bluebird that it could be so full of junk and
still move clay - even if it wasn't doing too well before it was cleaned.

Erin.