Potter3ee Posted December 4, 2016 Report Share Posted December 4, 2016 Hi everyone. I am looking for some advice on which clay to try out. I want a white stoneware clay that is soft enough to work with. I am quite puny with not an immense amount of upperbody strength and I have a weak wrist so I need something that doesnt need too much strength to wedge/handle etc. Also I dont want a high fire clay. Cone 5/6 is good. I also like using pure white glaze and would like it to fire 'white' and not off white or cream. I live outside the USA and would have to ship it overseas so it doesnt matter where in the states it is located. Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted December 4, 2016 Report Share Posted December 4, 2016 If you want a pure white clay you should go with porcelain. Standard 365 is a great cone 6 grolleg porcelain. No white stoneware is going to be as white as porcelain. They all go slightly yellow or gray. But a good white glaze will still be white even on a not-quite-white clay body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glazenerd Posted December 4, 2016 Report Share Posted December 4, 2016 I cannot tell you which clay to buy: do most of my own mixing these days. The only commercial clay I purchased was porcelain. I can however tell you what to look for in shopping clay: color. High carbon ball clays are dark, and low carbon ball clays are light brown to almond. Pending the intermediate mesh clay used: they can be almost white, to medium dark in color. Fire clays tend to be medium color, most in the gray range. So I would look for a nearly white stoneware body: which should be a low carbon clay variety in order to get the color. Often they swamp out #6 tile kaolin: which is a bit plastic in its own right. Yellow (as Neil pointed out) is from two things: titanium; but some ball clays have very high levels of sulfur- also yellow. (think yellow zinc) OR Lt brown to LT grey colors: will also have cleaner clays in them. The color/s come from low levels of carbon, that burn off readily. Or they can have just one higher carbon ball clay mixed in with kaolinitic materials. : that one addition will darken them. Sorry, no recommendations.. but some guidelines perhaps. Nerd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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