Steven Blankenbeker on mon 8 nov 04
Thanks for your patience. Here is where we are at.
The material lends itself very easily to water separation, and the process
to take crude kaolinitic earth to refined kaolin (less than 10 microns) in
suspension works very well. Using some mineral process technology we can
get the suspension down to a "puddinglike" mud with about a 1.45 s.g. The
methods to get the mud down to a dry cake are familiar to most of you. At
this point we are simply going to try using drying racks. It sounds
primitive (probably because it is) but it is really the most cost effective
way to accomplish the task. This would enable us to ship a near dry powder
vs. a slurry. I currently have about 200 gallons of the processed wet
clay. We are making racks now and should have this stuff dried pretty
quick. At which time I will sample the ones who contacted me.
At this point, I am fairly optimistic that we will be able to provide an
Avery-like clay for use in glazes. I do not think, due to process
limitations and costs, that we can do this in volumes for use in bodies.
(Availability of raw material, though, is not a factor, as there is an
abundant supply, so there is a possbility of doing larger runs somewhere
down the road.) From what information I have gathered, it looks like the
best recipes have some neph sy and a bit of bentonite. I guess that that
was an old Avery formula. I know little about it, but also hearing of some
good results with Shino type galzes.
In any case, it looks like we are about to enter the next phase of this
project. Thanks everyone.
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