Just discovered a quick way to reclaim bone dry clay.

[Barbsbus 4 fun]

The other day I was grinding up some left over pot roast to make hash and got to thinking about reclaiming the many pieces of dried up clay and then the light went on.  Why not grind up the broken pieces using my old fashioned hand crank meat grinder that I was using to recycle the pot roast and make tiny pieces of bone dry clay.  So the next day I ground up some of the clay and soaked it up with some water and let it soak over night and then I dumped it out on a slab of plaster I made to dry clay on and in a couple of hours on the plaster slab the reclaimed clay was ready to be wedged.  The clay was just like the clay that I bought, very smooth and no lumps and it didn't take weeks before I could use it like I have read about and watched on YouTube.   I can hardly wait to have the great grand kids over to help me grind up the collection of broken pieces of bone dry clay so they can play again without getting into my stash of fresh clay.   Life is good.

[JohnnyK]

Something to consider here is the effect that the clay is going to have on the sharpness of the grinding device down the road... You might be well off getting a replacement cutter for grinding meat in the future...

[Barbsbus 4 fun]

 I have several meat grinders and will just keep the one I used for the clay with my clay stuff.  This old grinder is an old fashioned. I think iron, that is older than I am and was my mother's and probably her mother's.  LOL.

[Babs]

Wear a mask. Dust dangerous

[Pres]

Bought a hand crank grinder a few years back to try building an extruder. Passed on that, maybe try it for recycling, but I have little in the way of dry scraps could try it for the wet clay bags I have.

 

best,

Pres

[Barbsbus 4 fun]

8 hours ago, Babs said:

Wear a mask. Dust dangerous

I did and also eye protection.  I play with my clay outside and make sure the kids wear masks and eye protection too.  We look like a bunch of aliens.

[Benzine]

In my classroom, I just break larger pieces into smaller bits by hand, then crush those pieces with a rolling pin.

It gets them small enough that they slake down fast.

I usually only do this to get bone dry bits for my deflocculated slip.  For reclaim, it goes from the bone dry bin, to the slip bucket, and eventually into the reclaim bin.

[Mark C.]

Lets see I recall a post about using a meat grinder instead of a pug mill

now its a dried clay grinder . I tend to be the smash with mallet type of guy. 

As noted it will ruin that grinder (like the pug mill guy found out)

I think whatever works for you go for it

One thing  of note is stoneware slakes very easily in water and no smashing or grinding is needed

[Barbsbus 4 fun]

27 minutes ago, Rockhopper said:

Guess it would depend some on how the grinder works, but have you tried running the scraps through when leather hard, rather than waiting 'til bone dry ? 

I'm thinking it would be much safer dust-wise, and possibly a bit easier on both the grinder and the operator.  Thought being that you would wind up with a bucket of thin 'shreds', or possibly ribbons, that you would then spread out on a board to dry, then toss in a bucket of water to slake down.   (Basically the same process you described, in a slightly different order, to reduce exposure to dust.)

I will try that idea.  Thanks

[oldlady]

glad your grinder is an old one made with good materials.    the one i tried split in two on the seams.