Robert on mon 26 feb 07
fir sawdust etc. Update- in search of a western oregon native stoneware
Yesterday I hiked the property on Taylor butte with three of my boys.
Its been cut over in the last ten years so lots of blackberries hard to
get through. There are TV towers on the summit and the road is gated.
We started on the opposite side and bushwhacked pretty steeply to the
summit. Found some high iron plastic clays along the way that would
probably never get to temp 'cept maybe glaze. Bare and windy on the
summit, storm coming in, hiked back down the road towards where it was
gated. We were still looking but kinda given up. Halfway down there is
was a thirty to forty foot bluff. I don,t think I would have identified
it except I knew from doing my homework that it was some where on the
property. There was a two foot ledge of cream flint fireclay on top of
a 30 foot bluff of burgundy fireclay with some amazing lilac colors
mixed in. The deposit descended into the ground at about a 20 degree
angle ( any geologists out there- is that an anticline?) to the
southeast. This stuff was a little smoother than Hobart Butte fireclay
and would almost slake, you could powder it with your teeth. The
declination was towards the wherehauser property that supposedly has the
more significant deposit, which I could see from looking at the lay of
the land. Under the deposit was alot of plastic clay. Found another
seam of very low iron plastic clay. At the base of the butte we also
found a much larger deposit of a low iron clay in a road repair site.
The hard rain and snow hit right as we got back to the car, mission
accomplished. I'm still stumped how to get into the werehauser
property. If anyone has any ideas how to approach them I'd appreciated
it. It's sort of a tree farm but pretty recently and heavily logged
and every dirt road for thirty miles that goes to the land is gated off.
Hank Murrow wrote:
> On Feb 24, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Duff bogen wrote:
>
>> Robert
>> Hobart Butte- I recall that David Stannard did some work with this
>> material. Maybe Hank knows how to contact him.
>
> Until yesterday, Stannard was in Eugene. He is now on his way back to
> Fairbanks and I have put Robert in touch with him by email.
>
>> Refractory Clay- There's a sandy/micaseous clay west of eugene. It's
>> basiclly in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of w. 11th and
>> Baily hill rd. In the late 60's you could get to a barrow pit. Last
>> time I drove by this pond had become the water feature of a small
>> industrial park??? There's also a self storage place whose yard
>> abutts the clay. Maybe they could be approached...
>
> I did contact them before the buildings covered the site, and that
> snady loam was used in eugene in the early part of the last century for
> casting (foundry) sand. Some added to stoneware clay would open it up
> like the clays around Tajimi and Mino, where the Shinos come from..
>>
>> I've seen fir sawdust used in a "home made" ram packed castable.
>> This was use dfor back-up insulation. I'd save the sawdust for fuel.
>> Stannard fired at his Hilltop pottery to cone 10/11. You mentioned
>> multi- fuel, to me this means sawdust wood and fuel oil used together.
>>
>> The castable tests I've done were with, by volume- Vermiculite 5,
>> Lincoln F.C. 1, Portland cement1. This fired well to cone 5 in ox. but
>> slagged down in reduction @ 9/10. Today I'd try this with Perlite and
>> White Portland Cement- hasta manana.
>>
>> A formula I got from robert turner was 60alumina:40OM4. This is
>> approximatley equal volumes so thats how I've mixed it. I've used it
>> in a couple different situations. The longest being for buttons to
>> hold ceramic fiber in a kiln that was fired for about 10years. I'm
>> dreaming of using this as hot face tiles backed with castable- hasta
>> manana.
>>
>> I don't know what happened to Monroe Clay products. They used to
>> dig a sandy ochre clay near Cheshire that they used in firebrick for
>> their own use.
>>
>> Duff
>
> Cheers, Hank
> www.murrow.biz/hank
>
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