Kathie on wed 12 may 04
Is there anyone out there that has an idea about a home made pug mill ? I
only need one for recycling scraps and mistakes. Buying a commercial one
is more than I can afford for the small amount it would be used.
David Hendley on wed 12 may 04
Kathie, you don't need a pugmill. If all you want to do is recycle
trimmings and mistakes, it is perfectly reasonable to make a
slurry by adding water to the scraps in a 5 gallon bucket.
Then pour the slurry into something to dry it out.
Some people sew up the bottoms of old jeans and fill the legs!
Some make troughs of hardware cloth lined with sheets.
I made plaster troughs, about 14 X 20 inches. Six of them
will hold 5 gallons of slurry and make 60 pounds of clay.
Depending on the weather, it takes 2-3 days to dry a batch
to throwing consistency (allowing a few days of dry-out
time between batches).
BTW, I have also made a homemade pugmill. It is A LOT of
hard work, and you need to be a skilled welder and metal
fabricator. Unless you use junkyard components, it is also
not that inexpensive.
David Hendley
david@farmpots.com
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
> Is there anyone out there that has an idea about a home made pug mill ? I
> only need one for recycling scraps and mistakes. Buying a commercial one
> is more than I can afford for the small amount it would be used.
Vince Pitelka on wed 12 may 04
> Is there anyone out there that has an idea about a home made pug mill ? I
> only need one for recycling scraps and mistakes. Buying a commercial one
> is more than I can afford for the small amount it would be used.
Kathie -
About 25 years ago I built a pugmill to the Harry Davis plans, and just
recently Paul Borian, who is on the list, built one from the same plans and
from additional information I supplied to him. This is a large,
vacuum-deairing pugmill, and I think that Paul would agree that it is a huge
job, and once you total all the materials and components needed, it is still
expensive. If you have to hire a welder/fabricator to do the work, it will
end up costing you more than a brand new pugmill. My pugmill will process
and deair a ton of clay an hour, which is way more than I need at this
point, but it was handy when I was a full-time studio potter twenty years
ago.
David Hendley is right - you don't really need a pugmill to recycle clay.
But a vacuum-deairing pugmill can eliminate hand-wedging, and it does
produce beautiful recycled clay. I recommend that you save your pennies
until you can purchase the small Bluebird deairing mill.
Good luck -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technological University
Smithville TN 37166, 615/597-6801 x111
vpitelka@dtccom.net, wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/
Roger Graham on thu 13 may 04
For Kathie, who was exploring the idea of making a pug mill. Constructing a
Harry Davis style de-airing machine is a truly heroic undertaking, not for
the faint hearted. But if you'd be satisfied with a plain-vanilla
non-de-airing machine, it's a bit more manageable. I've fielded questions
from various other potters, about two such machines in use here. Both home
made, using mostly salvaged scrap material... motor ex washing machine,
stainless steel pipe etc from scrap yard. Modest welding skills needed, and
only average common sense. Access to a lathe helps too, but not a lot of
that.
If it helps, I put together a little booklet with
words/pictures/measurements for these machines, to share with others who
have the same aspirations. Free for the asking, as a
portable-document-format "pdf" file of about 400 kilobytes. Small enough to
send as an attachment. Let me know off list if you'd like one.
Roger Graham, near Gerringong, Australia
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rogergraham
Paul B on thu 13 may 04
Yeah, but it totally cranks and was worth every minute and dollar spent and
i am forever thankful to the good Vince Pitelka for walking me through it
and being excedingly patient with me. I have increased my production work
on the wheel considerably with this pug mill because now i've always got
lots of vacuum pugged clay all over the place, just waiting to be thrown -
it's like, when you have it, you might as well spend it.
But of course i agree with him in that a project like this is not for
everyone. thanks again Vince!
-Paul
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