Pug Mill Service?

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While trying to justify buying a pug mill as a hobbyist (who throws maybe 50 pots or 100 lbs of new clay per week) I wondered about offering a ‘pugging service’ as a way to recover some of the expense. I wouldn’t be interested in devoting a ‘lot’ of my time to it (retired, not looking for a job).

I browsed this site and the web in general and didn’t see such a service for small batch customers.

Anyone ever seen such a service?

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I have not seen such a thing before, no.

You could view the purchase of a pug mill as preventing medical bills related to repetitive joint injury.

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21 minutes ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

You could view the purchase of a pug mill as preventing medical bills related to repetitive joint injury.

Hmmmmm, I wonder if Medicare would cover it. :-) Call it a rehabilitation device?

Seriously though; good point.

[oldlady]

where are you in north carolina?   you may be surrounded by professional potters who have their own.   or, you may be the salvation hobby potters are looking for.   

you should be aware that what goes into the pugmill does not all come out by pugging.   if you do someone's white clay after doing some dark color, there will be an amount that will be mixed dark and white and it may be that way through many pounds of clay.   one of the potters in seagrove has a corner for each color clay he uses.  each corner has it's own wheel, slab roller, pugmill and tools so nothing gets contaminated.  

[Min]

I have a friend who used to pick up free clay from a community studio. She would find ribs and all sorts of crap in it. It wasn't worth the hassle of getting free clay when she had to pick through it all to make sure nothing in it would do a number on her pugger and/or contaminate the clay. There is also the time it takes to clean out the pugger between batches, takes me about 3 hours to clean out my Bailey and put it back together again.

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2 hours ago, oldlady said:

where are you in north carolina?   you may be surrounded by professional potters who have their own.   or, you may be the salvation hobby potters are looking for.   

you should be aware that what goes into the pugmill does not all come out by pugging.   if you do someone's white clay after doing some dark color, there will be an amount that will be mixed dark and white and it may be that way through many pounds of clay.   one of the potters in seagrove has a corner for each color clay he uses.  each corner has it's own wheel, slab roller, pugmill and tools so nothing gets contaminated.  

I'm sure some of the potters near me do have them. I'm hesitant to ask them (mainly because I haven't met them yet (moved here not long ago) and my thought would be none would want to provide this service or I (we'd) have heard of it before. I would imagine most would not for exactly the same reasons you mention in your second paragraph. That must be one rich pottter to be able to afford basically equipment for a studio per clay body. One will be stretching it for me. I've got pretty high water pressure to clean one out with.

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2 hours ago, Min said:

I have a friend who used to pick up free clay from a community studio. She would find ribs and all sorts of crap in it. It wasn't worth the hassle of getting free clay when she had to pick through it all to make sure nothing in it would do a number on her pugger and/or contaminate the clay. There is also the time it takes to clean out the pugger between batches, takes me about 3 hours to clean out my Bailey and put it back together again.

Very good points!