This Is What Clay Looks Like From The Pug

[Wyndham]

I was out getting some old bagged clay ready for remixing and thought about the questions on"S" cracks, how to or not use pugged clay from the pugger, etc, when I came upon this bag of clay.

I think it shows how clay laminates,evem moist and throwable from a bagged, pugged source.

Clay seems to love to separate into layers. I'm sure the torch of the pugger screw  also puts the clay in this state as well.

Just thought some of you here might find this interesting

[Wyndham]

Be great if I knew how to spell torque

[Biglou13]

That's moist and throwable??

[bciskepottery]

"That's moist and throwable??"

 

Moist and throwable are relative terms, in pottery and real life.

[neilestrick]

I have never seen clay go into laminations like that unless it was frozen at some point. If that's how it looks coming out of the pugger, then there might be something wrong with your pugger.

[Benzine]

Neil, I've seen laminations like that before. Usually it's with projects that have been sitting too close, or even on the classroom radiator. They basically steamed under their plastic cover. But it looked very similar to that.

[TJR]

Be great if I knew how to spell torque

I thought you were trying to spell "touch".

I got the gist of what you were saying.

TJR.

[Pres]

Looks like to me the clay froze over the winter. That is how mine looks sometimes when the water content was low, and the clay freezes driving what was left in water out of it. If I put that in a bag with water and some wet clay, in about a week it is wedgeable.

 

Best,

Preston

[Guest JBaymore]

I've seen that before....... either frozen as Neil says, or usually with a cone 6 body when it has been wet for a long time or mixed with exceess acidic local water and then "reclaimed".  Soluble soda from the neph sy typicelly used in some bodies getting into the water.

 

best,

 

..............john

[Wyndham]

It's a bit of all the above. This was old frozen once, dried a bit and far far from throw-able. It's just interesting, at least to me, that clay has these properties that show up in extreme circumstances such as these.

It works fine after re-hydration and mixing.

So for those that wanted to know if clay gets too old to use, not really, just add water and mix.

The hammer and a screwdriver were used in the disassembling of the clay

I'm finally back to mixing and recycling clay after replacing a bearing and a sprocket gear on my old peter pugger. The machine shop that replaced the bearing mentioned that he was glad to finish the job but next time give another machine shop the job, he didn't want to keep all the fun for himself.

Wyndham.

[neilestrick]

I think it shows how clay laminates, even moist and throwable from a bagged, pugged source.

 

 

I think that from your original post we all thought you were saying that clay was out of the pugger, moist and throwable. Now it makes sense.

[Pres]

Good point abut the water John. I remember years ago when working more with watercolor that I ran iin to trouble with dull color in the paintings. I had not thought of the tap water having changed, but after being on vacation and using water from different places realized that that is an often over looked component. For clay I would imagine it could effect the way plasticity develops as we know that acidity and alkalinity can kill bacterial growth. As with water color we should probably watch the water in our glazes.

[Guest JBaymore]

Some clay manufactrures control the Ph of their water.

 

Yes... it can affect things. Not usually in a HUGE way..... but subtle changes.

 

Yet another factor in why glaze recipes often "don't transport well".

 

best,

 

...............john

[oldlady]

I KNEW there was a reason I always use distilled water!!!  it is great when you well educated guys tell us try-it-and-see guys what the technical terms are for what we learned by experience.  THANKS!