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clay too moist


gbant

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I manage a small park district studio with 10 wheels and three instructors. We order pre-moistened clay from AMACO and have for many years. Over the last year or so AMACO has begun to make the pre-moistened clay very wet. It is unusable out of the box and has to be dried before using. They told me they have done this to satisfy school programs.

 

Has anyone else noticed this change? Is it a problem? Is there an easy way to dry out a 25 pound block without having to monitor it and rewedge it?

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This is somewhat normal. If you're using a clay body that schools use a lot, like lowfire white, most clay companies mix it soft to satisfy their school customers, who buy a lot of clay and keep them in business. Most schools are handbuilding, not throwing, so they want a wet clay that will stay workable longer. Drying and wedging are the only option, or try another clay company that mixes not quite as wet.

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I have the same problem from time to time. To remedy this I cut a few 25 lb. blocks into 1/8th parts at the first of the week and let them set out for a while. The I put them back in the bag and through the week I mix them in the pugmill with clay that hasn't been dried. I run the clay through the pugmill a couple of times to mix it up and adjust the stiffness to my liking.

 

To my knowledge we WILL use the clay the schools use or mix our own, lol.

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I've never bought any commercial clay that wasn't far too wet to use right out of the bag. I take one 25 lb bag and slice it like bread and pound it onto the wedging board or a large plaster slab and dry it until it is too hard to throw. Even with Georgia's 99% humidity it is dries out on plaster within a couple of hours. Then I slice up another 25 lb bag putting one slice sloppy clay straight from the bag on each slice of dried out clay. I then wedge it up and it's perfect for throwing. I throw with very hard clay but most people (especially students) don't so you wouldn't have to dry your clay nearly as long as I do mine. I think it's an easy fix. You could also run it through a pugmill instead of wedging it but for 50 or so lbs it faster and easier to just wedge it up.

 

Jim

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Despite the fact that they tell you that schools want the clay sloppy, the real reason they sell it that way is to sell you water instead of clay. The wetter the clay, the more profit they make. I'd suggest buying your clay from another company. There are lots of clays available that are much better than the stuff AMACO makes. Laguna makes great clays and, of course there is a wonderful clay used by schools all over the country because it's dirt cheap and great clay--Lizella Clay. Also, if you like it sloppy wet they'll send it to you that way or if you like it drier they'll send it to you that way. BTW, I live in Lizella but have no other ties to Lizella Clay.

 

Jim

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Guest JBaymore

Despite the fact that they tell you that schools want the clay sloppy, the real reason they sell it that way is to sell you water instead of clay. The wetter the clay, the more profit they make.

 

Bingo again, Jim. Water is cheap. And while it makes only a few extra cents per pound of wet clay to a single user, just like other business that "accidentally" overcharge a mere "un-noticeable" penny on something.... when you sell enough of it... it all adds up nicely.

 

Another thing to check out as we talk about this kind of thing: (You have to have an ACCURATE scale to do this however. If your scale is not, then it is not fair to the supplier.) Before you use it, take out that supposedly "25 pound" slug of clay from the bag and weigh it. Another money-making trick is having a tad short of the full 25 pounds in there. This one will likely surprise you as to how often this is the case.

 

But no one really checks.

 

 

 

best,

 

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

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Despite the fact that they tell you that schools want the clay sloppy, the real reason they sell it that way is to sell you water instead of clay. The wetter the clay, the more profit they make.

 

Jim

 

 

Having been a production manager for a clay company in the midwest, I totally disagree with this claim. The amount of water needed to make a clay body go from wet to too wet is about 2-3 gallons in a ton batch. That's about 25 pounds of water. The materials cost of a clay body is around 15 cents per pound (at most). That's $3.75 per batch in material savings. So a company that sells half a million pounds of clay a year, which would be an awesome year from most of the smaller companies, would earn less than $10,000 a year extra by adding more water (2500 batches @ $3.75). I spent about $9,000 last year at my clay supplier. So do you really think it's in their best interest to start making their clay bodies so wet that they drive away their customers? No. Losing just a couple of customers can totally destroy any extra profits made by adding water. And once those customers are gone they may never get them back, and the customers will stop recommending their clay to their potter friends. I have given my clay supplier many new customers over the years. It is in now way in their best interest to add too much water for profits

 

Here's the real reason why clay bodies are often really wet:

1. As we just discussed, schools like their clays very soft so they have extra working time when handbuilding. Schools buy way more clay than potters, so that's who they try to keep happy. Lose a school and you'll likely lose the whole district, which can mean tens of thousand of pounds of clay each year. If you keep a district happy they'll recommend you to other districts.

 

2. It's hard to get the moisture levels right when mixing large batches of clay. Weather, humidity and moisture levels in the raw materials can all greatly affect the stiffness of the clay. Even changes in the weather during the day can cause clay to come out different from batch to batch.

 

3. The guys mixing clay are not potters. They don't realize how much the moisture level of the clay affects us. They do know, however, that the softer the clay is the faster they can run it through the pugmills, increasing their production.

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Guest JBaymore

1. As we just discussed, schools like their clays very soft so they have extra working time when handbuilding. Schools buy way more clay than potters, so that's who they try to keep happy. Lose a school and you'll likely lose the whole district, which can mean tens of thousand of pounds of clay each year. If you keep a district happy they'll recommend you to other districts.

 

So all us studio artists don't matter? To me, that is a reason to find a different clay supplier that will take care of ALL of its costomers well.... not just the "big ones".

 

2. It's hard to get the moisture levels right when mixing large batches of clay. Weather, humidity and moisture levels in the raw materials can all greatly affect the stiffness of the clay. Even changes in the weather during the day can cause clay to come out different from batch to batch.

 

3. The guys mixing clay are not potters. They don't realize how much the moisture level of the clay affects us. They do know, however, that the softer the clay is the faster they can run it through the pugmills, increasing their production.

 

 

Those last two sound more like manufacturer's quality control issues to me, not justifiable "reasons". They are variables to be actively monitored and managed... not simply accepted as, "hey, it is tough".

 

This is like us saying, "Hey I know that I have S cracks in the bottoms of my pots... but they are tough to manage. So it is OK. Just take the pots."

 

best,

 

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

 

PS: I'll take that $10,000 too ;) .

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Another thing to check out as we talk about this kind of thing: (You have to have an ACCURATE scale to do this however. If your scale is not, then it is not fair to the supplier.) Before you use it, take out that supposedly "25 pound" slug of clay from the bag and weigh it. Another money-making trick is having a tad short of the full 25 pounds in there. This one will likely surprise you as to how often this is the case.

 

But no one really checks.

 

 

Interesting. I have never checked the weight of a bag of clay. Clay producers know that nobody does. Maybe if a few of us did and complained if the weight was off more than a pound they'd think twice about shorting us. I don't think clay producers are evil but it is just too tempting for some of them to make an extra buck by selling more water and putting 23 lbs of clay in a bag. For people like Mark C. who uses a ton of clay every 15 minutes that 2 lbs short and added water costs him over 7 and half million dollars a year.

 

Jim

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Clay suppliers don't generally have the space to maintain inventories of soft and stiff clays to satisfy all of their customers. So when it comes down to economics, the bigger customers win, just like in any other business. Clay companies can survive better without studio artists than without schools. A smart company finds a happy medium.

 

Mixing clay is difficult work, being done by minimum wage muscle, not potters. Quality control is always an issue. I'm not saying to let them off the hook, I'm just saying it's tough stuff and some variation is inevitable. If the production manager isn't watching like a hawk, the moisture level of the clay suffers. Unfortunately, the manager is probably the also the tech, who also has to spend his day dealing with customers and a variety of other issues.

When the 25lb. clay block is cut from the extrusion coming out of the pug mill, is is cut by size, not by weight. The cutter must be calibrated to cut a large enough piece to weight 25 pounds. If you take 5 different clay bodies and cut equal size blocks of each, they will all weigh a different amount because some require more water than others to reach the proper moisture level. For this reason, you will often find that some clay bodies weigh out to more than 25 pounds in a block, to ensure that the others aren't under 25. Of course, we never hear about the heavy bags. If it's really a problem, your supplier will probably be happy to give you an extra bag every now and then.

 

In the big picture, clay is cheap! Yes, it's a big chunk when you buy a ton, but the price per pot is really cheap, so a pound here or there isn't a big deal in my opinion.

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Guest JBaymore

When the 25lb. clay block is cut from the extrusion coming out of the pug mill, is is cut by size, not by weight.

 

I used to be a technical consutant for Cutter Ceramics way "back in the day", before the Eagle acquisition when it got so over-extended, so I know the general operation of a ceramic supplier situation. And you are correct... it is NOT easy. But lots of things are not easy.

 

As to the above quote...... yup... and thereby the specified sales unit being used, "the pound", is being totally and BLATANTLY misrepresented to the end user... and is actually illegal. If someone is charging by the pound for the product, and labeling it by that unit price, but not packaging the product by the pound measure...... there is a REAL problem sitting there.

 

If the measure they are charging for is changed to being sold by "the slug" or the "12 inch pug" or something like that... then that is a totally different story. Then you are not THINKING you are buying a specifc WEIGHT of material.

 

Yes, some pugs may be over weight.......... but unless you are a potter using THAT particualr body, you are geting charged for providing someone else's clay. The other people get your extra pounds. They are happy... you are being screwed. And if ithe reason is simply that the company cannot be bothered to have different extrusion cutters for different bodies... it is simply that they do not think that the practice is unfair to those getting less than what they are being charged for.

 

Of COURSE no one is going to complain about getting more clay for the money. In fact that is akin to potters dropping a little extra piece in a purchase as "service" to a customer.... a good business practice.

 

This concept we are discussing, all in all, is basically shoddy treatment of the end user. To me, that the company does not have enough empoyees with the appropriate amount of time to do the job correcty to decent quality standards is NOT a justification. It is an excuse for poor practice. I can't see how saying it is not a big deal is basically not saying that cheating people just a little bit at a time is OK... just don't cheat them a lot at a time. I don't go along with that philosophy.

 

Yeah... clay is one of the cheapest parts of the making of handcrafted ceramics for sure... but it is the principle of the thing. There are many reasons that ceramics gets as little respect in the Western world as it tends to get. That we simply allow practices like this to happen to us over and over withut fighting back is one tiny little piece of the Rodney Dangerfield "I don't get no respect" situation that tends to haunt ceramics.

 

best,

 

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

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I'm with Neil here, I don't think any of these issues is a big deal. If my clay arrives a little too hard or too soft, I fix it myself. It sure beats digging it out of the ground with my own back. And clay is too cheap to worry about whether is weighs exactly 25 lbs. I just weighed a bag of my clay and it was 24 7/8 pounds. Close enough for me.

 

Mea

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This concept we are discussing, all in all, is basically shoddy treatment of the end user. To me, that the company does not have enough empoyees with the appropriate amount of time to do the job correcty to decent quality standards is NOT a justification. It is an excuse for poor practice. I can't see how saying it is not a big deal is basically not saying that cheating people just a little bit at a time is OK... just don't cheat them a lot at a time. I don't go along with that philosophy.

 

 

 

I disagree that it's shoddy treatment of the customer. I don't think they are cheating people intentionally. I never did when I was a production manager, but I sometimes sold clay that was 1/2 pound under weight due to all of the variables I discussed above. I think it's just the nature of the business. If clay makers were to put the necessary amount of money and equipment and personnel into making every bag of clay perfect, none of us could afford it and they wouldn't be able to sell it. They have found a way to provide a product to a notoriously cheap group of craftspeoplebiggrin.gif. It's an imperfect system, but it's what we've got. Even Laguna, the largest producer in the country, makes a lot of bad bags of clay. I simply accept it as yet another variable in the ceramic process. I agree that a business should do its job correctly. But I also recognize that if it weren't for all these smaller clay suppliers, we'd be mixing our own clay or paying 10 times as much for it. I'm happy to deal with some variability so don't have to spend my time mixing clay.

 

Any time I see a consistent problem with a clay, I call my supplier and they fix the problem and give me a box of clay. It really doesn't bother me. If it's so bad that the clay is not useable, they will exchange it- but that's never been necessary. Sometimes it's a little wet, sometimes a little dry. It's all within a useable range, though.

 

 

Good discussion!

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I often will add water to clay as its gets to stiff over time . I store it in a clay shed that is north facing-When I order once a year I order a few tons on the soft side so that come late summer that clay will be just right-sometimes it takes two years to get just right. Now and then I weigh a pug-they can run short or over I have found but generally very close.Thats all Laguna clay I'm using.

Jim

My 10 tons a year works out to 375# of clay a week which is not that much really for a production potter.

Heres the shed

Mark

post-8914-134333613768_thumb.jpg

post-8914-134333613768_thumb.jpg

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I often will add water to clay as its gets to stiff over time . I store it in a clay shed that is north facing-When I order once a year I order a few tons on the soft side so that come late summer that clay will be just right-sometimes it takes two years to get just right. Now and then I weigh a pug-they can run short or over I have found but generally very close.Thats all Laguna clay I'm using.

Jim

My 10 tons a year works out to 375# of clay a week which is not that much really for a production potter.

Heres the shed

Mark

 

 

Mark,

I've seen that pic before. I got a good laugh out of it when you posted that in response to one of my posts saying that I don't pay any attention to what anyone here says unless they have pictures in their profile gallery. I was using something like 300# of clay a week (varied a lot sometimes closer to double that but not for extended periods) when I burned out as a production potter in the '70's in Denver. I mixed my own clay but sometimes would buy from Van Howe or Mile Hi but I'd take it out of the bags quickly and smash it into my trash cans I stored clay in so that nobody would know I bought bagged clay. Back then no serious potter that I knew would admit they bought clay that came in little 25# bags for dilettantes and students.

 

Jim

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I manage a small park district studio with 10 wheels and three instructors. We order pre-moistened clay from AMACO and have for many years. Over the last year or so AMACO has begun to make the pre-moistened clay very wet. It is unusable out of the box and has to be dried before using. They told me they have done this to satisfy school programs.

 

Has anyone else noticed this change? Is it a problem? Is there an easy way to dry out a 25 pound block without having to monitor it and rewedge it?

 

 

To get back on the original subject, Amaco sells the bulk of their clay to schools, probably more so than any other clay suppliers. I know of very few studio potters who use their clay. Most schools use low fire white, terra cotta, or buff. If you switch to another supplier, theres no reason any clay bodies besides those 3 should be super soft.

 

Just thought of another point: Many clays are slightly soft when they are mixed because they have to have a shelf life. Stiffer mixes won't be useable after a year. That said, they shouldn't be mushy soft.

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We use between 60,000 and 70,000 pounds a year and the schools still control how stiff our clay is.

 

I also suspect the clay is made a bit wetter to give it a better shelf life. I may be wrong about that.

 

And, what Neil said is true, the people who work mixing clay aren't well paid. They are laborers. They work in those places because we choose for them to. If we wanted more expensive help, we would pay more for clay. But, if you are anything like me, you want cheap clay. I sometimes find that odd since I use 25 cents of clay to make a $20 mug. The cost in that mug is me, not the clay.

 

I buy from a local supplier. Those guys live by a shoestring and these days I suspect they are glad to have that shoestring.

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I purchased a 50lb box of Amaco porcelain a few years ago from a local art store and it was extremely dry. I had never encountered this before, and since I have no pug mill, I called Amaco and asked, ‘What was the best way to get it workable?’ I gave them the code from the box. And they determined that the clay had been in the store for a year or more and had dried out. They made a suggestion but getting it to the right consistency was going to take a few weeks. They sent me a replacement at their expense. The replacement arrived in a few days.

 

 

I have never checked the weight of my clay. I take it for granted that the supplier is honest. I get the delivery and I get so excited about the work that is to come, I don’t dwell on anything adverse.

 

If your clay is too wet consider this as the time to make a thick pottery plaster wedging surface. It will be wonderful working the clay to the specific consistency that you need. It will also give you the opportunity to really feel the clay.

 

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as one of "those guys" who is mixing clay for a living, I agree whole heartedly that most people working on the mixer at a clay mfr are laborers... The setup we have is unusual, both of us have BFAs in ceramics and are active as potters/sculptors. We get paid a little better than most laborers and there are of course other perks to the job as well. Our customers like it because they can count on being able to talk to us about technical issues with the caly and knowing that we can and will work with them to resolve them. Not par for the course, but its working here.

 

 

 

We use between 60,000 and 70,000 pounds a year and the schools still control how stiff our clay is.

 

I also suspect the clay is made a bit wetter to give it a better shelf life. I may be wrong about that.

 

And, what Neil said is true, the people who work mixing clay aren't well paid. They are laborers. They work in those places because we choose for them to. If we wanted more expensive help, we would pay more for clay. But, if you are anything like me, you want cheap clay. I sometimes find that odd since I use 25 cents of clay to make a $20 mug. The cost in that mug is me, not the clay.

 

I buy from a local supplier. Those guys live by a shoestring and these days I suspect they are glad to have that shoestring.

 

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