Reid Harvey on sun 29 nov 98
On a similar posting last month I told about the use of a plastic burlap
bag to help get all the excess water out of local clay. I did this
yesterday and would like to recount what happened.
I had a local kaolin that contained a lot of sand, so I thinned it down
with excess water, just enough that it would pour through a 60 mesh
screen with only a bit of help by hand rubbing. I poured the clay water
into a plastic burlap bag, that originally contained 5 kg of rice. At
first some of the clay water came through a few largish holes but this
soon stopped and I returned the clay water to the bag.
I then clamped the opening shut with two 1x1 sticks and 2 'c' clamps,
and hung the whole thing over a bucket, suspended from stacked cement
blocks on either side of the bucket. Soon I saw clear water dripping of
the bag. Boy did that feel good. Today when I went back the dripping had
slowed considerably, the bucket containing a whole lot more clear water.
I opened the bag, now having a lot less water, and containing beautiful,
smooth kaolin.
Personally I am very happy with this method of removing so much of the
excess water. Of course it's still necessary to put the remaining clay
on plaster bats, or the like, but Usually only one additional day of
drying is needed with the bats. The whole process is a great deal faster
than the methods that require a lot of drying.
Reid Harvey
Abidjan, la Cote d'Ivoire
| |
|
