gail sheffield on tue 19 jan 99
While I have not wedged much clay yet, I foresee it as a problem due to a
formerly crushed wrist, bad muscle tone, old age, etc. So I have followed
the "pugmills vs. wrists" thread with interest. Pugmills are awfully
expensive for the hobby ceramicist. My novice question: why couldn't the
same result be accomplished through the process described in an earlier post
by Jim West on preparing local clay? Especially if it was carefully stirred
several times while in solution to get any trapped air bubbles out. I have
included that post here.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim West
To: CLAYART@LSV.UKY.EDU
Date: Monday, December 07, 1998 8:18 AM
Subject: Preparing Local Clay - Final Chapter
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Thanks for all the tips and encouragement from everybody on the list! I
wanted to post some feedback on how I made out.
What didn t work..... Just waiting for the slurry to settle. I found that
I could dilute the slurry and it would quickly settle to a certain
thickness. Then it would just stop. Any more waiting was just that,
waiting. Adding vinegar didn t seem to help either.
What did work........ Pouring it into a cloth bag and letting the water
drip out. It would get to a certain consistency this way and then stops
dripping. Once it stops dripping, I put the cloth bag containing the clay
on a stack of newspapers. I change the newspapers once or twice a day until
it got to a throwing consistency. I went from slurry to throwable clay in 3
days. Starting with about 2 gallons of slurry, I ended up with about 12 lbs
of clay. And drying the clay - smashing it up into small pieces - and then
putting it in water works great to get the clay in solution. Using the
cheese grater on wet clay also works, but takes more effort overall.
Jim - In Pennsylvania, dumfounded after cutting the grass in December.
John K. Dellow on wed 20 jan 99
gail , unfortunately its not that easy. Gasses are given off & trapped in the
clay by the ageing process. The amount will depend on the type of clay . Most
seem to have organic matter in them .
John Dellow "the flower pot man"
ICQ : #2193986 {jacka}
E-mail : dellow@usa.net
25 Hugh Guinea Ct, Worongary Q 4213
Ph:+61-7-55302875 Fax:+61-7-55253585
Home Page : http://welcome.to/jkdellow
Lee Love on wed 20 jan 99
You can wedge clay and spare your wrists by doing it a traditional way:
tread on it with bare feet.
/(o\' Lee In Saint Paul, Minnesota USA 0
\o)/' mailto:Ikiru@Kami.com ICQ# 20586182
' http://www.millcomm.com/~leelove/taiko.html
Lili Krakowski on thu 21 jan 99
There was life on earth before pugmills. But that was the age of
apprentices. Visualize your clay as oatmeal. If you have seen raw
oatmeal it is made up of tiny discs. These are aligned every which way.
When the box is shaken these discs align flat on top of each other. That
is why the box says "this box is filled by weight not volume"--because as
the box is bumped the platelets or little discs align flat and pack down.
Makes sense?
Okay. Your clay is made up in a similar way. The water in it lubricates
the little discs so, in fact, they slip into a layered position more
easily. Now THEY ALIGN PERPENDICULARLY TO THE PRESSURE APPLIED. Visualize
now an upside down T. The stem of the T is the direction of the pressure.
The flat, top part of the T is a platelet. When clay is mixed up and
dried or was once slurry or whatever the little discs run every which way.
Wedging lines them up properly, compacting the clay, making it very
uniform. If you have bad wrists probably the cutting and slamming methoid
is best for you. Made the clay into a loaf--like a loaf of commercial
bread, slice into fat slices, and then whomp each slice against the
previous one, (slam one down, slam the second slice on top of that) but
with the pieces perpendicular to their original direction. (i.e. slam the
slices down on their edge.) Pick up the whole bunch and whomp it against
the wedging board, square it up again, and repeat till when you cut the
"loaf" in half it looks smooth and even on the inside. This excellent
method, however ALSO is strenuous. My repeated suggestion: use only new
clay, arrange with some nice young person (the boy who cuts the grass?) to
wedge recycled clay up for you. There probably is a nice young
highschoolor college
student who would love to do this in exchanbge for some studio time.
Lili Krakowski
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