QotW: What surprise have you found in your clay, either fresh or recycled?

[Pres]

Hi folks,  I was helping in the Ceramics for Adults class today at the HS I used to teach in. I had taken my wedding room off as I always do to work during the 3 hr class. I noticed someone else had taken off her engagement/wedding rings the same and set them on the table. I kindly admonished her for being careless and told her about a student of mine who had accused an entire class of stealing her engagement ring she had just gotten last weekend. We went through all sorts of investigations, questioning, and a very distraught student and class over the loss. The ring was never found until several years later I heard a grinding sound in the Walker Pug mill. Taking off the top cover of the auger tube revealed after so search a mangled gold ring setting without a stone. We searched everything, and still did not find the stone. but lots of clay had been pugged out of and old barrel mixed with newer slop. What a surprise .

I also remember when in college finding parts of a metal kidney rib in the clay while wedging it. . . cut me up!

QotW: What surprise have you found in your clay, either fresh or recycled?

 

best, 

Pres

[Mark C.]

New clay =Rocks/stones/ sticks and cat poop/small metal bits

My recycle -small stones and grass

[Dick White]

Many years ago, one of the students in the college class lost the bottom nut from the extruder die holder while cleaning it in the cleanup bucket in the sink. Irritating, but not the end of the world to have to go to the hardware store for a replacement nut. We periodically scoop the sludge from the cleanup bucket into the main recycle barrel, and when that barrel is full, I pug the recycle in to a proprietary mix that is so proprietary that even I don't know what I put in the pugged clay logs. Despite the unknown mix, it's usually nice enough to work with for class demos and experimental practice work. About a year and a half later, I was making a batch of Empty Bowls, and felt a lump in the wall of the cylinder. Thinking it to be an air bubble, I poked it with my needle tool, but it was a hard chunk. So I dug it out, and there was the long lost nut.

[Rae Reich]

Sponges, chamois, plastic, all sorts of tools over the years in our ceramics lab recycle in college. Those chamois really disguise themselves!

In commercial clay, a supplier, who was gradually going out of business, ran their rusting pug mill to the bitter end. We found chunks of rusty pugger in nearly every bag. No major injuries, but a challenge to throw. I was able to complete an 8” vase while leaving a 1/2” square of pugger in the wall, about halfway up, even while ribbing it out (carefully) as much as possible. We were curious about how it would fire. The fragment melted out and left a trail of mostly iron down the side beneath a tidy hole. ;p

That Franklin Adams clay was really nice and a dream to throw, even so.

[LeeU]

I am here to support the always interesting, always informative, always fun QotW and it's master Host.  As for surprizes in my clay---never, nada, nothin'.  Just here for support. 

[Denice]

I found what looked like a broken pugger tip in a bag of purchased clay.   In my own recycled clay I am always finding elephant ear sponges.    Denice