Can someone test my clay?

My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

Where are you?
Suggest that you ask @ the local college, someone there might do it (or even
already kjnow)
Hugz
Eddie
"knob" wrote in message
...
My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

I would be hard pressed to attempt to fire the clay knowing nothing about
it. I would hate to have it melt all over the kiln. If you bought some
commercial clay, then you would know what cone to fire it. Good luck.
Steve in Tampa, Florida


"Eddie Daughton" wrote in message
...
Where are you?
Suggest that you ask @ the local college, someone there might do it (or
even
already kjnow)
Hugz
Eddie
"knob" wrote in message
...
My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

trick is to make a few thumb pots of known s/ware clay, and then put a
sample of your clay in each... fire 1 to bisque 1000c (ish) 1 to e/ware
1060c, and 1 to s/ware 1260c that way you get a base line and know if
there's a melt problem..... Everything after that is finetuning.....
best to ask local college ceramics dept as they will be firing to all these
temps (ish)
Hugz
Eddie
"Mud Dawg" wrote in message
...
I would be hard pressed to attempt to fire the clay knowing nothing about
it. I would hate to have it melt all over the kiln. If you bought some
commercial clay, then you would know what cone to fire it. Good luck.
Steve in Tampa, Florida


"Eddie Daughton" wrote in message
...
Where are you?
Suggest that you ask @ the local college, someone there might do it (or
even
already kjnow)
Hugz
Eddie
"knob" wrote in message
...
My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

On Fri, 07 May 2004 22:47:35 -0400, knob wrote:

My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

The question of whether your clay is "good"
is complex. I suspect most any clay is good
if you are willing to adjust your working methods
to the clay. It's also possible to adjust the clay
to your methods. In either case, this is probably
only worth doing if you want to use that particular
clay for personal reasons; commercial clay is
always going to be a better bet for every other
reason.

So, assuming you want to use clay from your own
garden just for fun, you learn a lot about it just by
making something and letting it dry. It may or may
not be suitable for wheel throwing, but you can
always use hand building. If it dries without cracking
it probably will do just fine in the kiln. All you need to
do is find the right firing range. You do that by making
test bars of the clay and firing them, with precautions
in case they melt.

You can almost certainly fire to cone 04 safely, so
start there. You'd use that cone for bisque firing anyway.
Then you have to get a glaze that will fit on that clay
without crazing in a glaze firing. That's likely to require
a lot more work. As you try higher firign temperatures
the clay gets closer to maturity and will better hold the
glaze. In my own case, my garden clay fires OK to cone
2 with borosilicate glazes. If I fire it to cone 6, it melts
completely and in fact makes a lovely stoneware glaze
all by itself.

The only tricky issue that I know of is lime in your
clay. After the bisque firing dip the piece in water and
watch what happens. If little pieces pop off and you
see white flecks beneath, you have lime chunks in
your clay. That's what happened to me, so I had to
sieve the clay to remove them. I've heard 30 mesh
is enough, but I used 80 mesh just to be safe.

So, give it a try and let us know your progress as you
go. Don't worry about building the kiln and then finding
out your clay is unuseable... you can almost surely find
some way to use it, and even if not the worst that can
happen is that you will need to but commercial clay.

Good luck!





Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com

other way to stop worrying about lime in the clay is to fire 1200+c, simple
resulkt lime melts becomes part of the clay, no problem.....
Hugz
Eddie
"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 07 May 2004 22:47:35 -0400, knob wrote:

My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?

The question of whether your clay is "good"
is complex. I suspect most any clay is good
if you are willing to adjust your working methods
to the clay. It's also possible to adjust the clay
to your methods. In either case, this is probably
only worth doing if you want to use that particular
clay for personal reasons; commercial clay is
always going to be a better bet for every other
reason.

So, assuming you want to use clay from your own
garden just for fun, you learn a lot about it just by
making something and letting it dry. It may or may
not be suitable for wheel throwing, but you can
always use hand building. If it dries without cracking
it probably will do just fine in the kiln. All you need to
do is find the right firing range. You do that by making
test bars of the clay and firing them, with precautions
in case they melt.

You can almost certainly fire to cone 04 safely, so
start there. You'd use that cone for bisque firing anyway.
Then you have to get a glaze that will fit on that clay
without crazing in a glaze firing. That's likely to require
a lot more work. As you try higher firign temperatures
the clay gets closer to maturity and will better hold the
glaze. In my own case, my garden clay fires OK to cone
2 with borosilicate glazes. If I fire it to cone 6, it melts
completely and in fact makes a lovely stoneware glaze
all by itself.

The only tricky issue that I know of is lime in your
clay. After the bisque firing dip the piece in water and
watch what happens. If little pieces pop off and you
see white flecks beneath, you have lime chunks in
your clay. That's what happened to me, so I had to
sieve the clay to remove them. I've heard 30 mesh
is enough, but I used 80 mesh just to be safe.

So, give it a try and let us know your progress as you
go. Don't worry about building the kiln and then finding
out your clay is unuseable... you can almost surely find
some way to use it, and even if not the worst that can
happen is that you will need to but commercial clay.

Good luck!





Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com

Bob Masta wrote:

On Fri, 07 May 2004 22:47:35 -0400, knob wrote:


My latest project to irritate my wife is playing in the
mud. My two small children and I mixed up a batch of
clay and had a great time doing it. I'm building
a pottery wheel right now and if my clay is good I
will also build a kiln. Please note that I do not
intend to make great works of art, we are only
doing this for the fun of it. So I would like it if
I could mail someone experienced a sample of my clay
to check out it's quality. It's pretty stiff but will
need a little more drying I believe. Any takers?


The question of whether your clay is "good"
is complex. I suspect most any clay is good
if you are willing to adjust your working methods
to the clay. It's also possible to adjust the clay
to your methods. In either case, this is probably
only worth doing if you want to use that particular
clay for personal reasons; commercial clay is
always going to be a better bet for every other
reason.

So, assuming you want to use clay from your own
garden just for fun, you learn a lot about it just by
making something and letting it dry. It may or may
not be suitable for wheel throwing, but you can
always use hand building. If it dries without cracking
it probably will do just fine in the kiln. All you need to
do is find the right firing range. You do that by making
test bars of the clay and firing them, with precautions
in case they melt.

You can almost certainly fire to cone 04 safely, so
start there. You'd use that cone for bisque firing anyway.
Then you have to get a glaze that will fit on that clay
without crazing in a glaze firing. That's likely to require
a lot more work. As you try higher firign temperatures
the clay gets closer to maturity and will better hold the
glaze. In my own case, my garden clay fires OK to cone
2 with borosilicate glazes. If I fire it to cone 6, it melts
completely and in fact makes a lovely stoneware glaze
all by itself.

The only tricky issue that I know of is lime in your
clay. After the bisque firing dip the piece in water and
watch what happens. If little pieces pop off and you
see white flecks beneath, you have lime chunks in
your clay. That's what happened to me, so I had to
sieve the clay to remove them. I've heard 30 mesh
is enough, but I used 80 mesh just to be safe.

So, give it a try and let us know your progress as you
go. Don't worry about building the kiln and then finding
out your clay is unuseable... you can almost surely find
some way to use it, and even if not the worst that can
happen is that you will need to but commercial clay.

Good luck!





Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com

That's the exact answer I was looking for. Like
I said already... I'm not making works of art here...
Just keeping the kids and I busy. Someday they may
want to learn more based on a memory from their crazy dad.
Maybe not. I've got my eye on a pile of bricks for my
kiln already.

On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:10:49 +0100, "Eddie Daughton"
wrote:

other way to stop worrying about lime in the clay is to fire 1200+c, simple
resulkt lime melts becomes part of the clay, no problem.....
Hugz
Eddie

Eddie:

I'm assuming that the OP's native clay is the usual
earthenware "secondary" type, found in streambeds
and all too many back yards. This would melt completely
at 1200C (cone 6). (Mine does, and makes a nice
"Albany slip" glaze over a stoneware clay.)

But it would be interesting to know how commonly
one can expect to find stoneware clays in the wild.
I think these need to be "primary" clays, weathered
out of a granite cliff right into a local deposit. So I
suspect there need to be mountains around...
something we don't have where I live (Ann Arbor,
Michigan), but obviously not everyone is so
handicapped. ;-)

Does anyone know of stoneware clays found in
non-mountain locations? How does one go about
finding these?



Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com

Bob Masta wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:10:49 +0100, "Eddie Daughton"
wrote:


other way to stop worrying about lime in the clay is to fire 1200+c, simple
resulkt lime melts becomes part of the clay, no problem.....
Hugz
Eddie


Eddie:

I'm assuming that the OP's native clay is the usual
earthenware "secondary" type, found in streambeds
and all too many back yards. This would melt completely
at 1200C (cone 6). (Mine does, and makes a nice
"Albany slip" glaze over a stoneware clay.)

But it would be interesting to know how commonly
one can expect to find stoneware clays in the wild.
I think these need to be "primary" clays, weathered
out of a granite cliff right into a local deposit. So I
suspect there need to be mountains around...
something we don't have where I live (Ann Arbor,
Michigan), but obviously not everyone is so
handicapped. ;-)

Does anyone know of stoneware clays found in
non-mountain locations? How does one go about
finding these?



Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

I'm about 1.2 hours Southeast of you in the heart of the
Northwest Ohio Black Swamp. Ancient lakebed, flat as
you can get. I am on a rocky ridge though. I dug about
4 feet down, how deep do you dig?

want to learn more based on a memory from their crazy dad.
Maybe not. I've got my eye on a pile of bricks for my
kiln already.

Go to the library and request Michael Cardews book "Pioneer Pottery". It
should answer most of the questions for you.

John W