Sam or Mary Yancy on sat 29 apr 06
Suggest - be carefull on what brand you sellect on a extruder. I an mot faliniar with the scott creak brand but I have a Northstar stainless steel square barrel extruder. I did some research and decided on it for about the same reasons (stainless steel barrel). I got it with some extrurder dies so I thought it was a good deal.
Unfortunately I rarely-rarely use if for the following reasons:
First, the plunger lever is fixed to the plunger (no adjustment) so once you are half way down it is almost impossible to push all the clay out of the barrel, especially if you clay is not very - very soft and moist.
Second - it is very hard to clean and perhaps dangerous. When cleaning the barrel being square it is hard to get to the inside corners - and most importantly since the lever is fixed permanently to the plunger, it gets in the way. I almost cut a finger off once when cleaning the extruder - no kidding. If you buy one, be carefull!!!
Third - the way the extruder dies are attached to the barrel are a pain to change.
All in all I think i made a mistake in buying it, although it is very well made and reasonable priced. If I had to do it over, I would:
1. Buy a extruder with a round barrel (for easy cleaning).
2. One with a lever that can be adjusted for stroke/pressure , (a LOT better).
3. One that the plunger can be removed for cleaning (and for safety).
4. One where the extuder dies are easy to change out.
FYI - I have another northstar clay machines (36 inch clay roller) and it is great but not the extruder (in my opinion-for the reasons noted above).
Sam in Daly City
P.S. I am thinking about buying another extruder - clayarters - any suggestions???
KKline wrote:
I'm new to Clayart and obviously there've been problems with postings, so I'm going to ask these questions a second time:
Recommendations for an extruder for porcelain? I'm trying to decide between North Star with stainless steel barrel and the Scott Creek with aluminum barrel.
William & Susan Schran User on sat 29 apr 06
On 4/29/06 11:20 AM, "Sam or Mary Yancy" wrote:
> P.S. I am thinking about buying another extruder - clayarters - any
> suggestions???
We had a Brent extruder with round barrel and a pipe that the plunger looped
around - held in place by tension. Would slip often, startling students and
knocking some of them on the head even though I told them not to stand under
it. That found another home.
Had a Randell Extruder - a great big honker - would almost hold a bag of
clay.
Just too big for most of my students. Some light-weight small women would
hang odd the end of the plunging bar trying to squeeze out the extrusion!
That found another home.
Got a Scott Creek that has a plunger that's removable and fits into slots,
so it won't slip. Uses 3 pins to hold the die holder, kind of a pain
sometimes. The inner die holder is made of cast aluminum and if the plunger
is in the bottom slot and you push down real hard, the die holder can be
broken - so signs on ours not to use the bottom slot!
Got a Northstar with smaller square barrel with lots of plastic dies. The
die holder system is nice that it has slots in the plastic die that hold the
metal die holder in place. The barrel is small and the plunger has a fixed
point, but for shorter extrusions it works well for my students.
-- William "Bill" Schran
Fredericksburg, Virginia
wschran@cox.net
wschran@nvcc.edu
Ineke Solleveld on sat 29 apr 06
Hi Sam
I spray DW40 in extruder barrel and let it stand for several minutes
before I use it. Afterwards you take the left over out and let the
rest dry.
The dry clay will fall out and the barrel will almost be clean :-).
Ineke solleveld
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Kathi LeSueur on sat 29 apr 06
Sam or Mary Yancy wrote:
>Suggest - be carefull on what brand you sellect on a extruder. I an mot faliniar with the scott creak brand but I have a Northstar stainless steel square barrel extruder. I did some research and decided on it for about the same reasons (stainless steel barrel). I got it with some extrurder dies so I thought it was a good deal.
>
> Unfortunately I rarely-rarely use if for the following reasons:.....
> All in all I think i made a mistake in buying it, although it is very well made and reasonable priced. If I had to do it over, I would:..........
>
> P.S. I am thinking about buying another extruder - clayarters - any suggestions???>>>>>>>
>
While I do most of my extruding with my Bluebird pugmill, I have a Scott
Creek extruder that I've had for over 25 years. I still use it for
things like handles and small extrusions. Changing dies is easy.
Cleaning it is easy. I think it's a great piece of equipment and it's
held up very well.
Kathi
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