How To MAKE CLAY FROM DIRT - 4 Simple Steps 

Every other video that I watched goes through this long complicated process, and then I finally found this video. Thank you. Gonna make my clay tomorrow! Hope it works!

I promise I've never googled how to make clay out of dirt I just wanted to.and it worked!the worst part was that someone through it out because they thought it was poop

Dude, you are the nerd's nerd. I love it! Keep these videos coming! I CANNOT wait to get my hands into some Arizona clay. It'll be a fun project for me and my beloved. We should make our own plates and bowls for the kitchen.

That jump 😂😂😂😂 top class

one of my favorite people in the internet. Instructive, humble, no top of the counter fake personality.

This is great. I have seen so many of those other vids, and no one spoke about having the temper mixed in. I have made an effort to render clay from dirt, but I want to get a few questions cleared up. I used 4 screens to filter. First, a large grate to separate the largest rocks and leaves, followed with a mesh-screen strainer which got out lots of gravel, sticks, roots, and some sand. After those two processes, I poured through a mesh 40 and mesh 60 sieve. It really got out lots of sand and silt. That rendered a very silky-smooth slurry. Overall, it took lots of time and multiple passes to really get it all filtered through the mesh 40 and mesh 60 sieves. I poured the wet slurry into a tight-weave pillow case and hung for drying. I may have allowed too long to dry, but I pulled the resulting block apart while it was still humid. I have been spending a bit of time each day to break down the clumps by hand into a finer texture. The feel between my fingers is still very smooth. But, having watched this and your two vids on dry and wet processes, I wonder if I've filtered out too fine a level of silt. I think I see I'll need to add sand or grog as a temper, but would you say I refined the clay particle too much? I only yesterday spent time to attempt mixing with water again and kneaded it. I like the texture, and it seems mostly plastic, but it was still crumbling and sticking. I was able to roll, ball, and flatten, but the cohesion seemed low. However, after this vid, I think I may give it more time aging to see about finding it more plastic today than yesterday. I would love to get a response on whether I've over-filtered the particle size by using such a fine-screen mesh to remove grit. It appears I might have to introduce a temper material. I would also love to hear a little more detail about why aging works or how aging changes the clay body.

Can't wait to start making my own planters out of local clay. thanks for the great videos. of course I'm subscribing

My family just moved down that way and I am fascinated with the area..thanks for all you teach..I will be taking some classes in the future!

Thanks for the excellent, professional video. The girlfriend and I have a small homestead in the Southeast where clay soils are abundant and we've been looking into utilizing this resource to make our own pottery. Every other video I have found were very unprofessional and lacked credibility or any informed explanation of how clay works. I'm glad this video finally showed up on my suggested videos...this is definitely the channel I've been looking for to learn all about the pottery making process. You have yourself a new subscriber.

Thanks for the knowledge, sir. Behind my house there's a paddyfield whose soil turns out have a high clay content so when I try to wet it, it immediately turns into good clay, i also remove the impurities and mix the clay by stomping at it while still wet. My house is in an neighbourhood that has been a pottery center for many years, so I started to interested in starting clay processing in my own house.

Huge fan! I live in southern New Mexico....clay country. I am building a kiln and making clay thanks to you and your instructional videos! Subscribed!

So clay doesn't always come in reddish brown ? I thought I could just spot it with color? 👍🏾subscribed

Andy, you're so cool! I recently found a basically infinite source of wild clay about 50 steps from my apartment, and it's all thanks to your videos. I'm real excited for all the stuff I'm going to make!

I have been curious about the process of extracting, processing and using clay for years but I never got a straight answer. Can’t wait to watch your other videos!

Thanks for a great lesson. I used this technique to make clay this morning and I am pleased with the results so far. I had a good source of clay from a road cut on our mountain, used a small screen to get out larger pieces after rock crushing, and added some diatomaceous earth. Passed the finger test after an hour in the plastic bag.

I love the trick with the corn grinder! Glad to have found your Channel

you inspired me alot.. I live in palestine.. the most wonderful country.. I love any project that strength the bond between me and my land ..

Here in middle NC Indians often used quartz as a temper and those farther east used shells. I don't create large pieces (mostly replicas of pipes and ceremonial items) so I use actual ground up pottery fragments that I've collected over the years as my temper. I don't know... it kinda gives me a feeling of connection with those in the past.

Absolutely awesome channel on the subject. Exactly what I was looking for.

My first art teacher slaked river bed clay for the school n taught us from little kids how that works so thank u for the lesson and refresher 😊

I've watched this several times, I'm surprised that I haven't commented on it yet. Today it actually got above 50 degrees and I knew that a pile of topsoil we had delivered last Fall had clay in it so I went out in the rain to see if there was some unfrozen that I could get. Sure enough I found some and grabbed a tennis ball size piece. But today was brew day, I spent the day brewing a batch of beer so the clay will have to wait until tomorrow. It's soaking wet but I did easily coil it around a finger. That's tomorrow's project to play with that. :-D

You look a little like an older Leonardo DiCaprio! Love the videos, they're super helpful. I've been wanting to play with the clay in my area for ages. I used to make clay pottery for my forts as a kid with the red clay behind our garage, (sun dried and fragile, but it was fun lol!) 😂

Thank for adding some discussion in your video I will be looking at some other videos of yours.

wow i've been looking so long complicated process,Thank you.

We have a ridiculous amount of clay in our soil where I live up in the hills by grass valley(Northern California), I dig up giant chunks of it, gonna try and process some as my wife is getting into making pottery.

I love the controversial opening- 'Do you want the blogger, or do you trust The Grogger?' Haha! Absolutely fantastic video and information!!! From one dirt scientist to the next ;)

ive been wanting to make clay for so .png but all the tutorials online needed buckets and stuff but this works pretty cheep so thank you, thank you so much!

You are adorable. I love your passion what you do. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Fantastic to watch, thank you.

I’ll try make clay this way soon hopefully, great explanation ❤

Clay is awesome. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I do not do pottery but in Mexico, we use clay to do the construction bricks so for more is way easy to find clay, I learned this when I was a kid, and for me is not difficult at all to detect high concentrations, in central Mexico, we have the green and gray varieties no much on the wild red, watching your videos I feel at home, I have clay in my DNA

Thank you Andy. Great work. God bless

How do i find good clay if there isn't any rivers near me? And can I find that good clay near a small water stream like a brook? I love your videos btw 👍

This reminds me of my online archeology classes. Fond memories

Thank you for making these videos...

Have you tried making clay from dirt? If so let me know how it came out in a comment.

GREAT VIDEOS THANKS

Seriously. Thank you for your channel.

Thank you so much. Awesome video

😍 love it

Hi love this channel. I am in SC what we have around here is what we call red clay. It is what is found when we go to plant our garden and is almost impossible to dig or till. I always add some Orr of dark soil in so I can plant. Some ppl work with it as it is my question is do you happen to know anything about the red dirt/ clay I am talking about? Is it usable for clay pots firing etc? We do have lots of rivers around as well. 3 hours away toward the coast is sandy soil so totally different. Was just curious if anyone has ever worked with what I am talking about. Anyone from my area knows the red clay I am speaking of it is awful for planting surly it has a use!!

that intro had me hooked, i would believe anything you told me in this video 😂

great video good info

Thank you so much!

Hi, your videos are very inspiring. I have made my first block of clay. I have a question, you showed a test to measure how much the clay shrinks, is shrinkage good or bad? One of my sample clay has 4.7% shrinkage and the other has 0%. Which one is better?

Hey Andy, I’m just wondering how you decide what temperature and method you decide to fire your pots at and why? I see you prefer the historical approach but given the clay varieties how do you decide? I’d love to try this, I have a kiln already though and I’m wondering if it would be worth firing in there Any advice is greatly appreciated :)

Thank you for making this video

This was really interesting. On the archaeology program Time Team they did a show on one of the isolated islands off the coast of Scotland. They did a segment on this particular show that was an examination of the local clay and whether it was good enough to make pots. They used both store bought craft clay and clay straight out of the ground to show the difference and fired it in a clamp kiln using peat. From what you've shown here I'm guessing the original neolithic people on that island treated their clay the same way because the untreated clay was not plastic at all and simply cracked and broke while firing.

hi! listen i all the time tring to make clay but i have a problem when i take the land of clay it have a sand and its realy Destroys my clay i tring to separate the sand but its i`snt work you can help me?

How about making pottery out of wet clay after a rain? Is it best to work with dry material initially? Would sand mix with the wet clay or would the properties change? Thanks! I study archaeology and it is great to do technological studies to deepen understanding.

I saw a vid of an old woman making comal’s in Mexico and she had to grind rocks to get her sand. She had a hand crank device, similar to the corn grinder.

A fire pit on clay soil is rained on, and ancients make pottery from that wet clay bearing wood ash and tempered clay particles. On the other hand, did keeping a fire going in the pit produce the first reusable pottery? Thank you for helping others.

Nice video. My grand-mother used to replace sand by grinding pottery that cracked during firing or from overuse. Does sand work better?

Hay Andy, I'm getting into clay, bought a very small electric kiln, but what i'm finding now is that my clay, whether too wet, too dry, just right, tends to crack, especially when i'm putting in bends such as on a cup handle. I try to stretch it, it cracks. I add water, it cracks more, bend it, it cracks, and so now i'm thinking it's the clay's problem. My problem is that i live in Taiwan and my ceramics chinese is practically zero, and the local potter is somewhat xenophobic because of the covid scare that is still in full force here.... I've considered adding some quartz sand to the clay i got from him, watched a vid recently of yours where you added grog or whatever you called it, sand, to your wild clay. Any insights? Cheers, and i love your videos, been binge watching them of late.

Finally someone with knowledge!

Good tips. I harvested creek clay, gray in color, south of Lake Erie. Will let it age more. How can we tell if there is too much silt?

I'm making large amounts of clay from my property's red clay deposits. Is there a way to covert your volumetric 4:1 clay:sand ratio into a weight-based ratio? I've processed 22lbs of fairly pure clay so far--from the wet method--and ground into coarse powder in an old food processor. I'm guessing I could use your formula if I tap-settle the clay in the 5G bucket it's in, measure how far up it goes, divide that by 4, and pour that much sand into an identical 5G bucket, then combine?

Hey there Andy, I've been browsing over your videos on making/refining clay, a little fore-story - I've recently moved into Maricopa Arizona from Chicago IL and I've recently taken to a fondness of chinese purple clay pottery videos I've stumbled upon through TikTok.. Long story short; the internet at my house went out for a good week, and I just got so bored that I started experimenting with attempting to refine clay from the soil/silt of my backyard. The soil - (if you can really even call it soil -- more like silty clay-like material) - is dried and cracked as your videos have mentoined about clays ability to shrink in the absence of moisture.. Originally, without looking up anything about the refining process I sort of instinctually started classifying the silt "soil" into different powder grades, then adding water slowly to create a sort of clay-like texture but not quite plastic. It has some form but its not elastic or holds together well. Anyways TL:DR I'm interested to know more about the qualities of different types of clay, where to look for higher purities, and I'd like to know definitively if I can turn the "soil" thats abundantly around my Maricopa area into clay, and what sorts of processes that you'd recommend! Thanks so much if you do ending up taking the time to read this long winded comment, and I'm happy to say that you've earned my sub and online support.

So I live in an area called the "clay belt" would it be a good idea to test the plasticity before putting the extra effort in? I'm really new to doing ANY thing with clay.

Thanks sir❤️

Minute in and love it

Thanks bro

My clay is wet already (not a dry area and it was dug up while digging a large hole), so I need to dry it first to grind it and add the sand?

You remind me of John Denver which is cool. Your random run and jump was epic and made me smile. Excellent video. Thank you very much :) ...oh but 4/1 isn't 20% :p

I love your videos

This guy is a goofball. My kind of goofball. I like him.

Andy I have a few questions, do you ever add urine to your clay as you mix? What is the longest you have aged clay? Do you ever work clay from higher elevations there in AZ where the clays go through a freeze thaw cycle? Thanks for all the great video.

Thank you

Hello. I have a question. I live in an area where long ago it used to be ocean. I have heard that here would be a good place to gather clay. Is this true?

Your a cool person

I processed clay, it was hanging in a bag for 2 days now it is dry & crumbles. Does that mean it is no good' too much sand or debris, or just too dry & I can I revive it?

Do you have to use sand? I dont have any source of sand around. Any other options? I'm going to use this clay for taxidermy, it will air dry on the form to sculpt the faces better and hold down the eyes and not be fired then glue will be layered ontop of it then the hide. Could I just use the clay itself without sand?

Did/do you roast your temper to a grog before mixing it with clay or is this normal sand un- roasted???

but what i can say it i relay love you videos and i Usually successful but this time I'm stuck i really want to make clay and my pottery and i cant

Can we add something to the clay to make it lighter in color?? Tia

So we mix our clay with sand, 4:1... On that same scoop count, about how many scoops of water do we add, and is 'dooblie-do' a technical term?

I'm just curious why you wouldn't add regular Grog to it? Grind up old pots question marks the reason why I ask is because there must have been a reason why Grog is better since and because they've been using Grog they found out by archaeological sites finding piles of Grog being ground up when sand is clearly all around them so there must be a benefit

With all the clay i've made i've done the opposite of adding sand, i've always did my best to get all the sand out and i've never had cracking problems.

Is there any more clay in the red soil in GA and SC?

Can i make clay out of any kinds of soil and it will be strong if its hard?

Nothing to say man you are so cool in this

Can you use crushed eggshells as sand?

Isn't this funny I just googled How to make Clay from dirt and this came up. Damn Got an expert right off the bat.

Subscribed

I’ve seen orange, whitish gray, red, clay every time I wentto work. I tried using it but always came out grainy. i gave up as a teen but looking back into it

I noticed that your sand is quite course and much larger than the "Sugar sand" I have in my area. Is there any problems with using much finer Sand?

I would like 2 ask if clay can also b made with soil also

Great video! I made my clay within 10 minutes and that’s insane! Very Very helpful video

Um my ceramic teacher asked me what type of dirt can be made into clay can u help me?

👋 hi, what type of sand do you use??

Can you use crushed rock as sand?

I’m a high school art teacher and want to know how you can tell what cone to fire a clay you make?

I let it sit for 3 days now. Still didnt seperate. Brown colored . What does it mean

Now I have an excuse to play in the mud again after 50 years!

There is a couple year old thing of clay at a park somewhere in the world because nobody would talk with me so I started playing with the dirt

Well,its not like the clay knows how long you have been making pottery or digging it..if you understand what is going on in a scientific matter so to speak...then you will have good clay to work with. I have little to no experience with pottery and I have processed good quality clay to make crucible for my home foundry.

😊👍

If you keep a bucket of water with some of that clay in it just a slurry down at the bottom in a while not too long at all it will start smelling like sulfur it's not sulfur its I can't remember the name of the gas it's caused by a bacteria. Hydrogen sulfide that's what it is use that water to mix your new batches of clay and it'll speed up the plasticity rating a great deal

Thanks for this inspiring video