[reconstituting bone dry clay the RIGHT way]

In my experience it depends on what you're trying to reclaim. It's tricky to reclaim a whole bag of clay that has dried too much to use. There is a whole process of adding a little water to the bag, poking holes in the block of clay, then submerging the sealed bag in a bucket of water. Mine always comes out too wet on the edges and still firm in the center and is tricky to homogenize. 

However with trimming scraps and failed pieces, I just add them to a bucket in any form (dry, leather hard, intact, crumbled) and add CLEAN water (not slip) until they are all submerged. A couple days later I use a sponge to remove the excess water (why dry a bunch of extra water when processing) and toss the slop onto plaster. The plaster really helps to keep the clay at an even moisture level, more so than starting from a perfectly smooth slip. 

[Bubbles In Black Stoneware]

Thanks everybody. I will try a bisque soak. The ones that became more bloated were usually stacked deeply in the bisque firing, which confused me because some things came out fine and some were horribly bloated! Thanks again for the info.

[Bubbles In Black Stoneware]

I have been having a strange issue with my Cone 6 Black Stoneware Clay from Standard (266). It gets these big cracking bubbles upon glaze firing. I bought this clay to marble with Porcelain (Standard 365) because it had a similar shrink rate. The marbled pieces came out SUPER bubbly, really horrible. I thought it was just poor clay preparation on my part because of the mixing of the two. However it has been happening with pots I make solely out of the Black Stoneware. I prepare this clay the same way I do all my other clay bodies and never really have this issue otherwise. Has anyone else had this problem with this clay? Any advice?