Basic Cone 5 Clay Body Recipe

[earthawk]

Found a really good deal on 200 lbs of Kentucky ball clay ($4!)- now for the work. I am new to making my own clay body, so I'm looking for some suggested recipes. What has worked for you? I work on the wheel and handbuild, I have an electric kiln that I usually fire to cone 5. I am interested in working with low fire temps. as well.

[Ben]

Which Kentucky ball clay?

 

For starters, most ball clays have high shrinkage (compared to other clays) that can be a problem depending on how you form them and what you make form them. That is the down side. The up side is they also have a LOT of plasticity..

 

 

FWIW you won't be able to make a clay body that matures at cone 5 out of most bagged dry commercial clays. Most have firing temperatures up in the cone 20~ cone 30 range. In order to make the clay body mature at cone 5 you will have to add flux to your blend of clays. Then once you have enough flux in there you may have to add silica to adjust the rate of expansion so that glazes will fit. It takes some work but it can be quite educational.

 

I would recommend as a starting point "The potters complete book of clay and glazes"by James Chappel and "mastering cone 6 glazes" by John Hesselberth and Ron Roy.

[Marcia Selsor]

Here are two ^6 recipes for hand building. They have been used for outdoor architectural work. Linda uses glazes on that body. Daley doesn't use glazes..just the bare clay.

 

 

 

Bill Daley's Body ^6 tight Clay Body

 

Ball Clay 13.33%

 

Cedar Hts Red Art 40

 

Fire Clay 20

 

Newman Red Clay 26.67

 

100

 

Barium Carbonate 1% dissolve in water

 

Grog 10%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linda Blossom' ^6 Clay Body

 

Hawthorne Fire Clay 35

 

OM #4 Ball Clay 20

 

Newman Red 20

 

Fine Grog 20

 

Silica 200 mesh 15

 

G200 Feldspar 10

 

to glaze green use .5% vee gum in glaze

 

 

 

 

Marcia

[Marcia Selsor]

Here are two I used in my classroom at MSU-Billings for 20 years after we lowered the temperature from ^9-10 to ^6 in 1980. The first is mixed dry by volume for a small size Soldner Mixer. Recycled slip was mixed with the dry...or you can mix it just with water. It was our main clay body for the Ceramics program...about 50-60 students/semester.

 

Cone 6 Stoneware Throwing body used in Reduction (developed with help from Chip Clawson , Clay Business at the Archie Bray)

MHO Fire Clay 8 buckets (these were about gallon size)

Ball Clay 7.5

Red Clay .5-1

Custer Feldspar 2

Grog .25-1 depends on how you like it.

 

Vessel 6 White Throwing Body (a student discovered this and we adopted it. I don't know the origin.)

Custer Feldspar 10 pounds

Fire Clay 60

Ball Clay 40

Silica (Flint) 10

This mixture needs to age for several days to a week before using.

 

Marcia