making plates

[missholly]

ive tried to make plates several times. i use a 06 clay. (slabs)

would using a high fire clay help prevent cracks and breakage?

[Marcia Selsor]

I don't think the temperature of the clay makes a difference. It could be the type of clay. Some clays are more plastic than say handbuilding clay. Plastic clays throw easier but they can crack and warp easier. This is true for all themperatures. Some clays are plastic but may be less prone to cracking. It is always best to find a clay that suits your purpose/or way of working.

 

Marcia

[annekat]

I'm thinking that maybe your clay doesn't have an open enough body, that is, it would be less prone to warping and cracking if it contained more coarse material such as sand or grog (ground up fired clay). That would improve the evenness of drying and other workability characteristics. It wouldn't have to be super coarse. It's true that firing temperature of the clay wouldn't be the issue, but I think there might be more variety in clays you could try among those that fire to ^5-6 or higher. You don't want it to mature at a much higher temp than you are planning to fire it to. A lot of ^5-6 clays contain fine to medium sand and are nice to work with without the coarseness being noticeable. Or you could get one with a noticeably coarse body if you like the feel and look of that. I'm not really very familiar with low-fire clays, around ^05 or ^06, but get the feeling many of them don't contain much coarse material. I could be wrong about that. Perhaps your clay supplier could help you with this.

[Pres]

I really would need to know more about the types of cracks you are getting, also about your slab forming method, and your drying method to know what is happening with the slab plates.