How I Reclaim and Recycle Porcelain Clay 

This is a great illustration of how recycling and reuse are easy and efficient when they are planned for in your process

I absolutely loved the pottery classes I took in college. Unfortunately I never got to work with porcelain clay as the professor only allowed good old fashioned stoneware clay for undergraduate classes. We always saved our scraps and put them in a big garbage can and at the end of the semester we would help turn the scraps back into useful stoneware clay, on occasion the professor would add some fine sand to the mix to help with excess water. The coolest part though would be watching the professor make huge abstract vases from the reclaimed clay on average these pieces were 3ft to 4ft tall. The hard part was getting them in the kiln for the first firing but so worth the effort.

Not sure why RU-vid thought that I, a programmer, who has never worked with clay in my life, would be interested in this video tutorial, but here we are..

Hey Florian after watching you and other RU-vidrs now for many many hours and almost 2 years ... I finally bought myself a pottering wheel for Christmas. Also, I am going to take some lessons in January. Cant wait to finally start

I really love your perspective on this process. I personally find it very calming and your demonstration just shows that being able to reclaim makes the most of your time and money. Thank you :D

I fill a 5-gallon bucket with clear water and add clay scary on the fly. every day or two I clear out my wheel catch basin into the bucket. all scrap goes into the clear water as I go and 3 or 4 times per day I stir it with my paint stir. it always stays a fine slip and rarely gets any lumps.. when a bucket gets full I start a new one and let the first one thicken up for a matter of weeks until it will pile up. for example, if I take and scoop some out onto a board the second scoop-full will not smash down the pile very much. at this point I dry it as slow as I cab covering it up at night. it may take 2 weeks to firm up 50 lbs. i tend to cut the pile in quarters every day or two to even out drying. if I do have large pieces of scrap I will slake it down in its own bucket before adding it to the main slip bucket as to not screw up the fine consistency of the slip. so my reclaimed clay is always in the process but I never spend more than a few short minutes every day on any of it, some of the nicest clay that I have ever used was from mixing red clay with buff stoneware clay! i have no idea why

I’m just a beginner but I’ve always wondered about this!! Thank you so much for sharing your process in depth once again! :)

I don't know anything about working with clay and I have no idea how I got here, but I gotta say seeing the smooth and uniform cross sections at the end was somehow really satisfying.

The smooth texture of that wedged porcelain makes me want to bite it

This was entirely entertaining, informative, and felt like an ASMR video. I have very little experience with clayworking, but even with it, I still gain an appreciation for artists such as yourself and it's just amazing to watch your videos.

I just got my own wheel as I just graduated high school so now. I have to supply my self with all of the art equipment and this also includes normal paint. it’s a struggle of just getting money to buy everything for a somewhat decent pottery studio in my home. Like I don’t even have a table yet or even shelves and Im ready to cry. Lastly a kiln; that’s all my money in my savings account for a decent sized one. And don’t mention the electricity bill. But regardless of everything I’m going to find a way to get everything, and I’m just glad that my parents are here to help me. And with your simple recipe for the plaster batt makes my life a little easier, until I go to college to get my shit together with the help of the professors there.

During this reclamation process, especially when pulling trimmings from your wheel tray or dust off of your tools/wooden bats, do you have to worry about contamination or discoloration seeping into the porcelain reclaim? How do you mitigate this?

God your voice is so soothing. I could listen to this for hours

I remembered now I asked you a long time ago about recycling (porcelain) clay. Thank you for this video.

There’s something about the way you wedge clay that is completely mesmerizing. And the sound. Are you this calm in your everyday life? Just curious. 🥰

It is so nice , this whole process is so satisfying .Hats off to your hard work 👏

So beautiful, your voice, the process- very calming too

Wow it's a lot more than just mixing water and clay. It must take years just to learn how to process the clay the way it will work for you. I'm sure every artist wants it a little different. Than you have to learn to use it. Much more than I ever thought went into it. Thanks for sharing 👍 very interesting.

hi there. Im really enjoying your videos. I'm not a potter i just like watching what your doing. Your voice is very calm and relaxing, and i could listen to you all day!!

I wish I could reuse my sawdust like this.

Thanks a lot for these amazing videos. I always look forward to your posts and videos, they're simply soothing! :)

THANK YOU!!! Honestly love your channel so much.

Thank you so much for your amazing, nice and generous videos.

I love these videos! Theyre so calming 😌

Never done it, never will. But it was a pleasure to watch and listen, thank you!

I appreciate that you explain what happens when you do things the wrong way.

You can rock tumble porcelain and if it has beautiful color it makes great rocks for mosaics, garden features and fish tanks.

Happy Solstice Florian! Cheers from Canada🍁

I found it very satisfying 🥰

Awesome. I was trying to wedge some recycled porcelain for my wife who is an amateur potter which had been stored in a bag in the garage over winter. I think, judging by what you have demonstrated, that it was still too wet as it smeared all over the plywood bench top. So I have left it to dry out. Hopefully it will be easier to manage tomorrow. Thanks for all your videos.

Great video on the technique! Thanks!

Was waiting for this 🦋

Wow, I love your Work.

Another soothing video...😍😍

i also don't know why but this was the information i wanted to know the moment i found your channel from Tom Scott's video. i think because i want to feel reassured that if i were to try pottery, none of what i had to throw out would be wasted.

Thank you so much for showing this to us. Your voice is soothing, your method of explaining is straightforward but also elegant, and I love the way you produce your videos. The calm lighting, the perfect cuts, the way you frame the shots. I honestly can't wait to be done with school so I can learn the craft. Edit: Please do get a pug mill! I'd love to know more about them and I'd like to see your life made easier. I'm also curious if you'd deem it a "worthwhile" investment and for what reasons (ex. Time saved, ease of use, less workload, more opportunities for form and such).

Almost a year since i've been watching your channel, thanks for all the vids!

I have never done pottery but I would watch this to fall asleep any day

Great video. Thanks so much.

Beautiful!!

omg his voice is the best. i want to fall asleep but i want to finish the video!

You really communicate with your audience.

Thanks for sharing!

Love the vids

Love the video, thank you!

i just love watching potters reclaim clay haha

very helpful video!

Thank you for your sharing

Have you considered using a dehumidifier at some point during this process? I feel like it might speed up dry time if you've got a container big enough to house the machine and your drying blocks.

Hard worker ma'shaa Allah..

Fascinating! :)

Oh, there is no sense of getting a pug mill if you want the workout. :-) A recent experience I had in using my small hand-sized cubes of porcelain (that are the result of my no-machine recycling process which is pretty similar to yours- and the best shape for me to use in my small tiles and animal jewelry) is that a common stink bug had somehow gotten into my scrap container on my worktable and then into my slop bucket! Imagine my face when pulling out bug body part from a small Swedish Vallhund piece I had made for a customer's order. A bit of patching and he was good as new and fired fine. No bug parts explosion in the kiln, which was my fear. All these years of sharing my work space with the odd stinkie, ladybug or wasp and this is the first time it has happened. For my reclaiming, I hand mix the slurry (up to my elbows) and used to scoop up piles up thick sludge and pat it into a yule log shape on a bandana-covered piece of drywall. I would let that firm up for about a week, cut it into smaller slices and wedge those into my hand-sized cubes and bag them up. Those bags are allowed to sit under my work table and the porcelain will turn green and be nice and workable after a few months. I like some of your ideas and will try them.

Such wonderful advice over all, that came be applied to many other crafts

Thx for this video!

Please make a video about making the walled plaster bats for porcelain!

Ooooooo that cracking sound! Ugh hoping for an asmr ver knowing there wont be one HAHAHA

I will have to try this with my air dry clay

Amazing

Great Vidro. 🍀

I always fine this stuff interesting. Wish I could afford to do stuff like this.

What an unusual material clay is

Wow that awesome no wast that how you really save money.

Hi, i just discover your work right now, so you may had already done a video about it, but i'll ask you anyway : Did you know if i can turn floor-powdered clay stuffs (like pots, tiles or bricks) into pottery clay again by mixing it with some water ?

I came here thinking I get a guide to recycling broken teacups etc. Guess this was interesting as well since I watched the whole thing :D

Hi and thanks for sharing uou amazing skills. As a new potter I want to reclaim and wondered how much water you use for your plaster slab recipe. I assume you mix the 2 dry ingredients before adding to the water. Thanks

A piece of plywood with canvas tied or stapled to it makes a good reclaim or even hand building station, as plaster is great for that but kind of expensive.

Can you tell about the red clay used in other videos.please 😊😁

So, any timeframe on a video of making those newly-redesigned bats?

I have no use for this information but I enjoy it regardless. 👊

When I have clay that's too hard, I make holes in it with a knife, pour water over it and leave it in a plastic bag overnight, and then wedge it. If it's still too hard I repeat the process.

I think i must be old skool because i have tried pugmills and spiral wedging - in fact i have tried it all but i always revert back to spiral wedging and i prefer it and prefer using the clay treated in this manner. However saying that, if you do have a lot of reclaim then a pugmill is a very handy tool.

Awesome

Nice

Thank you for the plaster recipe. 2 questions, 1) I cant find herculite plaster, is there a common name for that? 2) what are the dimensions of the plaster bats? For this 10400 gm recipe? It looks like about 4x12x18 inches.... or maybe 4x18x24 inches. Am I close?

is it possible to reclaim fired clay?

i didn't know i wanted to know that. 2022 starts weird, who would have guessed ?

If you make new recycle bats you should definitely make a video

Do you ever dry out clay with stuff like magnesium oxide? You make it by baking magnesium salts, its used for dehydrating food

you should use an industrial baking mixer.

Omg how many box’s do you have now

So you deal with "short" clay by letting it let's say "ferment"? Do you add anything else? I've been dealing with this for months with a lot of my porcelain clay. I haven't used porcelain for 8 years and got back into it a little over 2 years ago. So I've been reclaiming a lot in the last few months and have had issues with short clay. Thank you ☺️

Yo nose mucho ingles pero con el tiempo ya estoy entendiendo más palabras, y hay veces que pongo los subtitulos ya que con eso puedo entender más lo que dice pero trato de hacerlo sin ellos :D

How do you think your brand* will be affected by moving from red stoneware to porcelain? (*Sorry, I can't think of a better word)

Hi Florian, I'm interested in placing porcelain slabs in my bathroom as a grout less application, but I can't seem to find any videos on high-end porcelain. How is porcelain's quality graded? I intend to place it in a way in where the slabs could be reclaimed, so in case I ever need to do any repairs or want to change the decoration in the bathroom, the porcelain would not be wasted. Porcelain functionally stands out above all other options, but I'm also interested in the potential value it could bring to my home as an investment: marble, for example, could improve my home's value by 25% of the retail value of the marble in the home. All that said, I really do appreciate porcelain and don't want to hide it by giving it an image of marble: I want people to know its porcelain and a high-end porcelain at that. What can I do to help really make the value of high-quality porcelain stand out?

Hi Florian, I saw in your other video you found a rubber in your recycled porcelain. Maybe you can pass it through a sieve before drying it. (no experience in it, just an idea).

I don't plaster myself. Still very interesting 👍

I have college tomorrow but here I am at 1am Watching this idk why

Hi! Just a question: the wall you are building, is that with clay or porcelaine ?

I wonder how well a paper shredder could grind reclaim clay into a powder to speed up the hydrating process? It does not even need to have sharp blades. A broken shredder too dull to cut paper would work fine.

We live in similar weather. Winter is my favourite time because people go into hybernation mode

@10:50 I live in Utah, USA. Very dry here

I heard pouring off the excess water is what makes it short. Theres supposedly important things dissolved in the water

I live in Alberta Canada, and reclaiming clay on Bats like your takes on a a couple of hours, and if you have to leave it, you MUST cover it to prevent it from drying out completely because it is so dry here, and in Winder time the dryness is even worse. I can use a heat gun on something I just threw on the wheel and it's leather hards and ready to trim is short order, leaving it to dry over night requires it be covered with plastic otherwise you wind up with a piece that has to be reclaimed. I have such an issue with my cody being worn out from far too many years of hard labor, I wish I had gone into pottery as a youth, then I might be a lot more capable than I am right now, so if I were to start a full time pottery studio, I would absolutely need a Pug Mill. SO I know all about wanting one, and if you have the money to get yourself one, why are you holding back? I urge you to get one because the less work you make your body do now, the longer you will hold off the physical limitations that will come with getting older. Please take my word as truth, your body never forgives you for labor that causes wear and tear. I have such pervasive Osteoarthritis in all of the most essential joints in my upper body that I am essentially handicapped and am forced to live on disability income from the Government in my country. Don't wear out your body thinking that there won't be consequences as you get into your later years, I am constantly on powerful painkillers just to make it through every day, working is out of the question, even a desk job is out of the questions due to the complications I suffer from. Listen to me when I say that if there is something that will reduce the physical exertions you go through, BUY IT! it will make your life easier when you get to my age. SOme people can do hard labor until they are almost in the grave, but that is a rarity in my experience. Take it from a fool who thought your body would simply heal from hard labor, do not take your health for granted and do not abuse your body. buy a pug mill my friend, it will extend the time in which you can do the work.

I have a question: is it possible to reclaim and recycle clay once it has been fired?

Maybe dumb idea, I've dabbled in ceramics before, but a idea just occured to me. What if you used a cheese grater to make the large chunks/dried out blocks smaller so they dry quicker? They would be able to be reconstituted with less exerted effort.

Seeing him kneading the clay makes my wrists sore…

Pugmill !!! get a twin auger pugmill, it's the best.

I think a pug wouIld be a great investment for you with as much reclaim as you do.

5:05 I can't hear you over the scraper. Please adjust the audio mix.

Que vontade de comer esse pão 🍞