Harvesting clay

[LaurelB]

I've been experimenting with clay harvested from my yard.  It is a beautiful color, very plastic, slakes easily for easy processing, but cracks like crazy... Even small, very stable forms crack into pieces if not dried VERY slowly... Like 2 weeks to dry a shot glass size cup.  

I've added grogg, with a small improvement, but I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice on what to add to make a claybody with better drying performance. 

[Babs]

Was a lot on these forums about this a while back.

Try a search "local clay"

@glazenerd may help.

[Magnolia Mud Research]

15 hours ago, LaurelB said:

've been experimenting with clay harvested from my yard.  It is a beautiful color, very plastic, slakes easily for easy processing, but cracks like crazy... Even small, very stable forms crack into pieces if not dried VERY slowly..

Your photograph resembles a red clay from my ponds that I use;   by its self, my pond clay needs to be fired significantly higher than cone 10 to become "mature"; I once made a sundial with only the pond clay -- straight out of the pond -- fired to cone 10, the fired piece was a nice red but equivalent to a "bisque" firing regards to strength and absorption.    After that, my "solution" was to mix the pond clay with commercial clay bodies; essentially using the pond clay as a colorant.  
I now use the pond clay as a decorative coating for my work.   It also makes an interesting component in cone 10 glazes.  

I suggest mixing the "yard clay" with some commercial clay body. start with a small amount of commercial clay body and go from there.    dry ball milling my "pond clay" improved the strength of drying tests.  
 
LT