QotW: Do you or have you ever mixed your own clay for your studio, and if you do describe your equipment and working space?

[Pres]

Hi folks, no new questions in the question pool.

When I was much younger, I volunteered to help on a Saturday to mix clay for the ceramics classes with the professor. The ceramics studio was on the second floor and was equipped with a Soldner like clay mixer, and a Walker pug mill. The professor had a clay body that he mixed up by bags, I remember the water hose from the sink praying over the powders as we dumped clay into the mixer. Keeping the clay wet was to keep the dust down, but it was everywhere! We mixed 3 batches that day and ran it through the Walker. Al in all, it was an 8 hr day. The professor mixed a quite a bit of slop from his slake buckets to help with plasticity, and by watching the square lugs coming out of the Walker he would tell when the clay was best. I worked with that clay the next Monday class, it was terribly short at the time, but still throwable for a second semester student. I have never mixed clay since then, deciding that I didn't have the equipment or the space resources to get into it. Heaven forbid to do it in a HS classroom, I would never get the room clean again!

This got me to thinking about how many potters out there have made their own clay body or do the rely on a supplier to do the dust work!  There is a recent thread on the forum lately about the buying clay premixed or dry to save on shipping costs and expenses, which also brought back the previous memory.

QotW: Do you or have you ever mixed your own clay for your studio, and if you do describe your equipment and working space?

 

best,

Pres

[Denice]

I had to mix clay in college but that doesn't answer the question.   When I put together my first studio it was in a old 20x20 building with a bathroom in it.   I didn't have room to make clay in it so I made it outside.   I would buy the bags of dry clay I needed and dump them in a large heavy duty plastic trash can with the garden hose  running.    I would stop occasionally and mix it up with a drill and paint mixer,  and then add some more clay and water.   I would let it sit until  there was very little water to drain off.   I had a old solid core door that I would dump the clay on,  I would let it dry in the until it was the right consistency for stomping around on it,  kind of like crushing grape with your feet to make wine.  This would make me enough clay to last the winter.   Bagged clay was just starting to show up on Ceramic stores shelves but it was pricey.  When the price of bagged clay was just a little more than making it yourself,  I switched to bag clay.   I still recycle all of my scrap clay,   I was glad I had all of those buckets or recycled clay  when it was hard to fine new recently.    Denice

[oldlady]

i used a recipe for a cone 6 red clay that my friend and college instructor developed for her students.   they were so afraid of having to buy the clay from the bookstore at high prices. so robin teas made the clay with her students as part of their classwork.   i used some and liked its smooth texture and  fired strength.  they worked it the way denice describes above.

the time i made it, i was buying 1 fifty pound bag of Redart and one fifty pound bag of XX saggar clay.  that hundred pounds made 200 pounds or close to it.   i used a stainless concrete mixer that was owned by a local potter.  it took a couple of hours to drive back and forth and mix everything to the correct consistency.   i used the red clay until i just could not stand having my hands and fingers stained all the time.  it really is a wonderful clay body to throw and handbuild.

now i buy a cone 6 white stoneware made by highwater clays.

 

 

[Mark C.]

Sure long ago (the 70s)

mixed it in a tub added my slop -dryed it in huge plaster tubs-ran it thru my vertical Alpine pug mill (before most of your times-these maching stood 5 feet tall)

came out rough -had air in it and was short-agged it for a few years still short.I was in my 20s and in the middle of the schooling of hard knocks  which I got a degree in about 10 years after my art collage degree. You try every thing until it kills you-listen to know one except a bad back and sore body-I went for the advnaced hard knocks degree

Gave up the whole darn deal. Never looked back-My time has always had value

Nowday I have two peter pugges and still would not make clay . The only reason for me would be to make a body I could not buy one. Maybe a self throwing body if Glazenerd can devise one for me as that is the only body I cannot buy as of now.You would weigh the balls drop them on the wheel and step away as it throws itself. 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Mark C.

[Denice]

A computerized wheel,  you have a library of shapes,  designs, size,  you choose one and send it to your wheel.   That would be great if you just want to make work to design and glaze.   I would  miss the sensuality of throwing and intensity of trimming.     Denice

[glazenerd]

It has been close to a decade since I have purchased pre-mixed clay. I mix my own blends, using recipes I developed. I use a PP SS30 to mix. I have an electric cement mixer that holds 150 lbs of dry materials. I load it, let it mix for 15-20 minutes, and scoop out dry blend as needed. I mix outside to keep the dust down. I mix dry materials and water in a 3 gal bucket to create a heavy slurry: I do not pour water directly into the mixing chamber. I fill the chamber completely with dry mix, and then begin adding slurry. Once I get close, deair, then pug about 12” of clay, throw it back into the chamber to remix. This assures the chamber is filled with solid, well mixed clay. I mix mostly porcelain, an occasional stoneware; and done a few loads of colored porcelain. More recently, mixed several loads of locally harvested clay. I have marks on my table to lay pugs on: these marks allow me to cut 1-2-3-5 lb balls without weighing. 

Tom

[Russ]

Yep an old modified plaster mixer outside and a pugmill. The clay ingredients from my formula are weighed out in proportion and put into the mixer in 100 or 200lb batches and dry mixed for a few minutes then water is added. Clay pulled out and put in 40 gal trashcans and wheeled inside and run thru the pugmill. Pugs of clay are placed in another trashcan and covered with plastic at each layer. Been doing it for years. I once bought a box of clay in the late 80s but none since.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I did mix when I was young and still held illusions about how easily I could access a soda kiln after college. And time on my hands, because I had no kids.

In college I did most of my work in a soda kiln, and had access to equipment, so I mixed my own clay body. It was a white stoneware that had Tile 6 kaolin a little red art and some grog added to it. It came out of the bisque the colour of a pink school eraser, and flashed some lovely yellows, pinks and oranges, so naturally I wanted to keep using it. 

However after I graduated, there was a distinct lack of a soda kiln, a large enough scale to weigh out 100kg batches, a Soldner mixer or pug mill in my life. So I had to modify my recipe a bit. My supplier sells dry bags of a white stoneware that also comes in box form, because some people like to also use it for slipcasting. So I’d take a full bag of that and add 5% red art and 5% fine grog in one of those big blue beer tubs from the garden centre.  I slurry mixed it and dried it out in pillow cases on a concrete patio slab behind my rental house. Because no light got to this area ever, there was only about a 4 month window in the year where I could dry it out there effectively. I stored it for a couple of months before I used it so it would age. I kept it in rolls in plastic bags for those trash holders that attach to the cupboard door under the sink, and would just wedge the heck out of it before I used it.

I was not making very much work at all, and only did it sporadically for a number of years.

Having kids actually made me have to really examine how badly I wanted to spend my time on what activity. Mixing clay was entirely too much of a nuisance for very little tangible result in work I could really only fire in a regular gas kiln at a city run arts centre. So I just started buying the white stoneware I’d been modifying in the premixed boxes.

On a side note, I probably make more work in a year now than I did in the 5 after I graduated. It wasn’t just not having to mix clay, but it was a factor.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Callie Beller Diesel
Added a few sentences

[Roberta12]

No, I do not have the space or inclination.  I truly admire people who do mix their own formula.  I have my brain full trying to mix glazes and figure that out!!

 

[Kelly in AK]

I’ve been using local clay for about five years, digging and mixing it. So no one gets the wrong impression, I’m not a production potter, this is a labor of love. It’s my night job and I don’t make money at it. Just enough to support my habit. I have put thought into making the process as efficient as possible though. I’m fortunate that tons of clay are available every time a new house gets built in my neighborhood. I just drive up, load up, and go. That’s step one, get the truck as close as possible to the clay. 

Most everything happens in my driveway (I’m not sure what the neighbors think, haha!). I dry it, crush it, then mix with water to slip using a big drill and a mud mixer bit. Then it’s sieved to 60 mesh and I let it settle for a week or two and siphon off the excess water. After that I add some Veegum (mix this up a day ahead) and pour it into drying trays. Those are made from 2 x 6 lumber with 1/4” mesh attached to the bottom and lined with fabric. I have three and they stack. After a month or two it’s ready to wedge. It doesn’t dry perfectly even, the edges are stiffer than the middle and so I stir it around once a week or so. 

Wedging is the biggest chore. I’m looking forward to buying a pug mill, been saving up for it. I may buy a pump to move the slip some day too. 

I mix around 300-400 pounds a year. Adding up the time, it takes a few days work. 

[Pres]

Thanks for the great process pictures. . . @Kelly in AK. I understand the labor of love bit, but for me that is too backbreaking too far. Guess being older has its advantages as it reminds you that activities of your youth are often insanity!  

 

best,

Pres

[Min]

Great pictures Kelly, thanks for posting!

I'm guessing that in Alaska  freight on clay from WA state (or where ever it would come from) would make it quite expensive to buy commercially. Having a supply of free clay on your doorstep would be wonderful! (especially when you get a mixer/pugger) When we lived on Haida Gwaii everything had to come in by barge from the mainland, it was just a way of life to use what was locally sourced whenever possible rather than having stuff shipped in.

[Kelly in AK]

8 hours ago, Min said:

...in Alaska  freight on clay from WA state (or where ever it would come from) would make it quite expensive to buy commercially.

You got that right! 

[Chilly]

Dug raw clay from the scout campsite and got the youngsters to make pots.  Fired on an altar fire placed on an open fire, covered with more and more and more wood for 8 hours.  We guessed the temperature to peak at around 800c.

Was hard work, fun, and never to be repeated on a personal basis.