Lou Roess on sat 8 mar 08
We've just recently had a small pugmill (non de-airing) made
available to us. The school uses red earthenware exclusively but we'd
like to use it for white stoneware. How do we clean it out before
use? Would running some sloppy paper mash like we use for paper clay
through it be harmful? Would it do the trick? How do the rest of
you clean your mills when changing clay? The archives were not much
help on this.
Thanks, Lou in Colorado
Loren JOnes on sat 8 mar 08
The best way to clean it it to take it apart and let everything dry out and than chip off as much as you can than clean all the parts. Where in Colorado are you? I live in Fort Collins and could help if you need.
----- Original Message ----
From: Lou Roess
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Sent: Saturday, March 8, 2008 11:59:57 AM
Subject: Cleaning pugmill
We've just recently had a small pugmill (non de-airing) made
available to us. The school uses red earthenware exclusively but we'd
like to use it for white stoneware. How do we clean it out before
use? Would running some sloppy paper mash like we use for paper clay
through it be harmful? Would it do the trick? How do the rest of
you clean your mills when changing clay? The archives were not much
help on this.
Thanks, Lou in Colorado
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Kenneth D. Westfall on sat 8 mar 08
That would not be a good idea and I very fast way to goo up the
works. Either take it apart or just run your white clay in it till it come
out clean. If your short on clay i would suggest the taking it apart and
cleaning it.
Kenneth D. Westfall
Pine Hill Pottery
HC 80 Box 32
Harrisville, WV 26362-9507
kenneth@pinehillpottery.com
http://www.pinehillpottery.com
John Rodgers on sat 8 mar 08
Red to white - that is a heavy duty switch.
I have an 'ol "Big 'N' Bad" Walker Pugmill - stainless throughout. I
unplug the thing of course, then roll it outside. Next I take the covers
off, scrape out as much as I can with my hands, then I pressure up the
water hose with a high pressure stream through the nozzle and blast away
with that solid stream until all is clean. Next, I close it all up.
Stuff in some white clay that I don't mind staining, then I run it until
I get pure white through it. I try my dangest to avoid having to make
such a change, because this is one of the biggest PITA's I know of
revolving around using a pug mill.
In the world of the big clay companies, they don't go through all that.
It's not economically efficient. When time to change clay runs, they
just start putting the next clay through. They run them until the clay
is clean of previous clay. This in between stuff is referred to as purge
clay and often can be bought for significantly less than the pure stuff
- whatever clay the pure stuff happens to be. I often buy purge for
$5/bag from different sources. You can also buy dried out stock from
vendors for cheap too if you are willing to reconstitute it. Having a
pug mill really helps in that department.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Lou Roess wrote:
> We've just recently had a small pugmill (non de-airing) made
> available to us. The school uses red earthenware exclusively but we'd
> like to use it for white stoneware. How do we clean it out before
> use? Would running some sloppy paper mash like we use for paper clay
> through it be harmful? Would it do the trick? How do the rest of
> you clean your mills when changing clay? The archives were not much
> help on this.
> Thanks, Lou in Colorado
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
>
> Clayart members may send postings to: clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list, post messages, change your
> subscription settings or unsubscribe/leave the list here:
> http://www.acers.org/cic/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
> melpots2@visi.com
>
>
vpitelka on sat 8 mar 08
Lou Roess wrote:
"We've just recently had a small pugmill (non de-airing) made
available to us. The school uses red earthenware exclusively but we'd
like to use it for white stoneware. How do we clean it out before
use? Would running some sloppy paper mash like we use for paper clay
through it be harmful? Would it do the trick? How do the rest of
you clean your mills when changing clay?"
Lou -
When changing from a terracotta, if you do not want any color contamination
in the new claybody then you need to take the pugmill apart and clean it
completely. Nothing else will do, but usually it is not very difficult to
disassemble and clean a pugmill. You did not tell us what kind of pugmill
it is.
If you have a quantity of buff claybody and do not mind some additional iron
in it, then you could run the buff clay through the pugmill first to remove
most of the terracotta, and then pug your white stoneware. If you did that,
the contamination would be minimal, and it would be much easier than
cleaning the pugmill.
Good luck -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Tech University
vpitelka@dtccom.net; wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka
Robert Seele on sun 9 mar 08
I took a pail of sawdust, added water to make a thick soup
and run that through several times.
Then used water to flush out the saw dust.
That seamed to do a good job
bob seele
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