Making Alchemist's Clay: My Updated Process 

Thanks for the shout out, this is an interesting idea I will have to try.

i feel like Al-Razi himself would be proud of how much you have refined and modernized his process

a good way to mix two powders together is to put them in a jar together filled about halfway, close it, then invert the jar a dozen or so times over multiple axes. Makes it easier to mix and homogenize powders without getting as much dust in the air.

You can also try letting the decanted clay win rice water until it ferments. The Japanese and indigenous people in Venezuela do this technique alike in their own ways to make a very smooth form of clay that allows them to build mud walls. The Japanese use rice straw mind you, because it has a high quantities of silica. The gross smell is a good sign. Basically you leaves the leaves root in the solution.

Clay storage The best way to store clay is wet wrapped in plastic or some other airtight container. (for as long as you can) Clay actually ages. Once you have properly aged clay you can use a piece of it to "infect" new clay for aging more quickly. What happens is that bacterial life takes place in the clay making it more workable. Some crafty clay workers will even try to buy the "old clay" from the dealers at a reduced price (because it is old) taking advantage of the art suppliers ignorance of clay. = Ray

So, add carbon ((homemade) charcoal) to iron to make steel; add charcoal to clay to make workable potter's clay; charcoal to chicken feed/water for smell/disease control; review videos on how to make biochar & activated charcoal; make charcloth for DIY fire pistons; carbon felt (how are these made?) for eternal wicks...if I had some land, I think I'd acquire 2 metal barrels & make some charcoal!!! So many uses!!

Very interesting; that method of cooking flour and water to gelatinize the starch is also used in certain bread recipes to keep the bread softer and prevent staling. It's known as a tangzhong. Cool that it works for clay as well!

This is my new favorite channel and it's criminal that youtube hasn't put your videos out there more. This channel feels like those memes from a couple years back that the Primitive Technology channel would be making a steam engine right now or half way to making a computer, except he just stuck with making grass huts. Here you are remaking the cutting edges of right before the industrial revolution. Maybe the channel would be better named Renaissance Technology or Alchemy Technology or something for the memes.

Please make video about simple glazes and dyes that achient people used.

Here in Illinois we have a great clay layer… if you have the muscle to dig 30” down through the topsoil. I found a great way to avoid the work though. I find fox dens. Foxes often dig down through the topsoil and into the clay layer to make their dens. This leaves huge mounds of loose clay all around. I simply scoop it up into buckets! I can get 3-4 5gal buckets full of granulated pure clay from A single fox den and there’s nearly no sand, sticks or impurities.

Smell aside, I had a pottery teacher that swore that fermentation or....fungus... would help with strength. He said he had a friend who poured a beer into his (huge studio sized) batches of new clay expressly for this purpose. He did have very few explosions even with a bunch of student projects going into the kiln every day, so who knows.

This is literally modern alchemy! It's incredible and inspiring, and I hope to keep seeing more of this!

Super interesting as always. Your addition of vinegar was a masterful stroke. Both as a temporary preservative and as something that is known to increase the plasticity of clay to the point where scoring and slipping is barely needed. Good job and great instincts.

I saw the alchemist's clay video a while back (I don't remember when exactly, it was in my recommendations) and this morning I watched the alchemy deep dive after seeing it in my recommendations yesterday, and oh my god it's the best recommendation I've had in a while because it's not only a fascinating video in its own right but also it made me think "isn't this the guy who made alchemist's clay a while back?" Lo and behold, I check and yep you're him, and the other video titles also piqued my interest so here I am now, in the evening, starting a channel discovery binge now that I've done what I need to today.

I love the inclusion of the chemistry, thank you! Really great content

Instant fan of your videos here, I hate to sound negative when your style/methods are such a breath of fresh air but I'm perhaps a bit overly safety conscious. I wanted to make sure you've read about silicosis and since your videos have surely inspired some first time potters I'd sleep a little easier if you'd briefly mention the permanence and severity of inhaling silica dust/silocosis, especially since its a dry pulverizing method. Just a gentle suggestion.. I hope i'm not annoying you in doing so, hope your lungs are well and that you keep up your magnificent/unique work I used to read scads of research papers about admixtures to clay for improving various properties, stone powders, broken glass, shredded plastic, might be worth looking into

Please make more of the clay and firing videos. Theyre great!

Thanks for the demonstration.

i love this bro. I'm making an Earthen Basketball Court and I can relate to the process of going against conventions and just seeing if the chemistry makes sense. Love your videos!

This update approved. Blackthorn-Professional Potter

You deserve so much more subscribers. Literally a hidden gem on YT.

Found you in the recommended with a oil lamp glass blowing vid. Now you have a new subscriber lmao, i love this style of content and you're voice is pretty soothing. Keep on crafting!

I remember my ceramics teacher in high school in the 80’s told me how his teacher used to treat his clay by keeping a bucket full of clay saturated with water. He would toss in some apples and potatoes and stir it every once in a while for a few months. Then he would decant the water off and dry the clay.

Oh man, another treasure trove of informative and good for my expanding wealth of hobbies video. Thanks 👌🏼

You are doing a very good job of bringing back the origins of alchemical experimentation. Keep up the great videos my friend.

I found your chanel through the alchemy video and im just amazed! I love your chanel and aspire to put this knowledge to practice ❤

I really love your technology style !!! please keep on posting

more videos!!!! love it!!

Thanks so much for sharing your research, this'll help a lot. I just finished making some charcoal and am continuing to do tests on the clay I've collected. I'm excited to use this method once I finish the experiments I'm running with my samples.

Very cool and super helpful.

I love your channel, content, narration and even safety tips, keep up the good work :D!

If you take finely ground charcoal and a thick starch paste you can then ram the mixture in a steel pipe capped at both ends, one with a small vent hole in it. Compress the mixture with a hydraulic jack and a tree . Then place it in a hot fire for several hours. When you're done you will have a carbon rod like what was used in welding and lights.

i love it when the universe grants me access to such knowledge, as if it was just waiting to be known. i do not feel as though i am studying, but simply downloading and processing these thoughts and ideas, which i know will aid me in navigating throughout life's hardships. thank you for sharing your discoveries.

Very cool John- man, it must be great to dig your own wild clay right near you and it's fascinating to see how historical sources can tell one how to use it if it's not ideal right out of the ground. I've been a hobby pottery for about 6 years now, but I've only ever been able to use commercial clay, so getting to watch people like you and Andy Ward do what I can't is great fun. I'll have to find a copy of that book- it looks really interesting. I'd never have thought of using charcoal dust as a temper- and using flour paste would never have occurred in a million years. Thanks!

this channel is so rad

It would be interesting to see short video about this mortar and pestle build (YT short perhaps?) I would recommend some viral title, your channel deserves to expand!

Oh hey! I noticed that you had updated the description of your translation of the Al-Rizi, while I'm not the one who made the original comment on the previous video, I appreciate you taking the time to do that.

This was fun to watch :D

Thanks for sharing

great video

Pure awesomeness

I'd love to see a quick video on the mortar and pestle, and all your home-made tools for that matter... This is inspiring, I really want to indulge in the foraging alchemist fantasy like this... More interestingly... could you more or less tell how many parts clay powder-charcoal powder-hair/fiber that you use in your recipe? Just to have a starting-off point for how much I should add to the mixtures... Edit: My bad, watched the rest of the video, you go in depth in the percentages hahah

Thank you!

Thanks Fraser, that was fascinating, and thanks also for the mention.

Golly! I love listening to your narration!! I truly love your videos! Such good filming of your projects and experiments! I want to make little clay things too and when I found your videos I’m so inspired!! When I go to Georgia I can bring home beautiful clay! And I love how you explained how to do this in a little fire! Thank you Fraser! PS…the way you speak ‘ir’ rather than ‘or’ I am especially fond of as I have the same pronunciation of most words with this too (as I pronounce “for” as “fir” as an example) I love your pottery!! And thanks for sharing the books you like as well as your relative video recommendations. Yur top shelf! 😜

A great and simple recipe and a great video

Awesome videos tnx for all the information.

Fascinating! This technique reminds me of tangzhong - which is sometimes used when baking cinnamon rolls or other soft, springy doughs. The starch in flour gelatinizes above 149 F, giving it properties that are very beneficial for “bounciness” and moisture retention

Great Video!

Great video !!!!

i love your channel, i hope you are able to find more time for youtube!

This is great! I had made the bitter experience of moulding samples of wild clay, letting it dry, giving it a squeeze and finding it to crumble to dust due to containing silt. I was taught that clay, which contains, silt is useless for making pottery, but this Info here might save me from spending too much time on looking for good clay. Thanks

Bro I was about to give up on my clay before seeing this. You have the exact same kind of natural clay I'm trying to work with. Thanks friend!

Thanks. This video and your previous one finally turned my clay into a more workable form. I can guess how the mortar and pestle was made but a quick video could be useful. Another suggestion if you want another video idea is a tour of your shop showing off some of the cool things you made. Your candle holder and the rush light holder look real nice and the oil lamp (blow torch) and the fancy copper stand I'd love to build a version of for myself. I've seen about all of Andy's videos and took most of his classes but I'd like to see how you fire your clay when you get a chance to make a video.

Thanks for this information. I'm currently using some wild clay on a friend's property. I'm experimenting with different amounts and types of temper such as charcoal, grog, and sand. I'm finding the clay difficult to work as it is prone to cracking while making and shaping slabs. I'll try this method on a small batch and see if it improves the workability. *Update* It works sooo well. While I still had trouble with slabs cracking as I tried to shape them the workability of the clay was greatly improved. I was able to make good pinch pots and coil built pieces with the clay after the starch was added. 👍

Awesome

I find all of this very interesting. And the point about the starches really makes sense. I wonder if boiling cornstarch would have the same effect as boiling flower. I imagine it would. Just some food for thought thank you so much for making these videos.

Nice!

Most excellent update sir and we can't thank you enough. Saving me tons of time with useless attempts, giving credit to Andy's channel (agreed awesome), you are what the world needs more of friend. Thank you, good luck with all your projects, and yes I would love to see a video of how you pit fire yours and a few finished pieces.

Great content! Thanks 😁 🏺

I just discovered you, but it is truly wonderful to see someone as fascinated as I am about the Practical applications of Alchemy. For example, everyone knows that, more or less, gunpowder was invented is Asia, but they don't know that it was Alchemists who did the discovering, at least by accident.

7:26 it would be more expensive but i’m curious how a fiber like psyllium husk would compare. afaik it’s longer starch chains, so it’s possible it would be even more flexible for the same weight, but i’m not sure if it would make any difference, and it would definitely cost more

Your channel is very intriguing and similar to my interests! I’m surprised that you don’t even have 1k subscribers, love your voice too

morter is one of my favorite things ,,yes vid please

I would very much like a video on your wooden mortar and pestle pls. Thank👍

you are essentially making starch glue for your clay XD

make a video on the mortar and pestle edit: in this video, you mention vinegar enhancing clay, and I did some research, and ended up finding out that that may be because there was silt in your clay, and the acid of vinegar could have decreased its particle size down to clay. Alternatively, it may have removed non-clay substances found in your clay, such as organic compounds. I am interested to see what would be the affect on your clay if you used a stronger acid, and if that would increase the clay quality as well. As you are learning alchemy, you should readily have a large number of solvents available to you very soon once you learn how to make them (though you already probably know how.

This is awesome, must try ;: )

Beautiful

Good work! I would consider using some ball mill for making fine powders, though. But the result is impressive already

Id love a video on your giant mortar and pestille! We keep wood on hand for the stove in winter. Theres a few good trunk chunks out there that I eyeballed watching this. Great videos! Binging through the whole list lol

I need that book

actually, vinegar makes clay stick to itself more! my art teacher has us use diluted vinegar to clean tables after units on clay. it can also be used to make spooze, essentially slip but thicker and stronger. corn syrup, clay, vinegar, and maybe water.

Awesome, thanks! Don't mean to sound arrogant but charcoal and pregelatinized starch (boiled starch, as you showed and as used in pharmaceutical tablets etc) is exactly what I would have added. I didn't think about making it into dust though. Thanks again!

this man is Styropyro but for clay and i love it

Awesome video. In watching the four and water, it made me think of old school flour paste like we use with paper mache'...... which also made me wonder if Elmer's glue might also work......

Please make a video on that mortar and pestle!!

Damn, I guess I got lucky when I was younger cause I know of a massive stoneware clay (it's naturally a mild grey) deposit near my old house and it was always more flexible than the stuff we used in art class, although it was partially submerged in a stream, but that didn't matter after the first inch or so because the clay itself was so uniformly dense and porous that the water content only made the very outside slick and easy to wash away with a quick rub, but everything deeper was already wet and would take serious time to be saturated fully.

Amazing job well done how are you so cool🦊

You can make a rudimentary clay-like putt using rice and vinegar if you grind it in a mortar and pestle. You can also use water, but it's less plastic. Both will crack when dried.

PS…YES!! I would LOVE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF YOUR HOW TO MAKE A GIANT MORTAR AND PESTAL! I really want to make one for pounding and refining clay and other outdoorsy stuff! So please, when you can 🙏🏽 🎥

A video on open pit firing would be immensely useful. I’m making things, such as burial and cremation urns, bowls, and beakers, with nettle string decoration marks, for an exhibition later this year, on the prehistory of our area in Britain. I’m just hoping that it’ll be less wet than its been over the last year in northwest Britain.

I appreciate you being interested in interesting things and not just taking the bread and circus and being like "wow guys this flavored sugar water is surprisingly pleasant to drink"

I am in a city that was renowned for brick making. The soul here feels like soft chocolate ice cream after the rain. I'm going to make some pots, items, and an oil lantern or two.

I was sad to see this video end....

I would love to see your open pit firing process. I only have access to campfires.

Thumbs up specifically for the "horrible and torturous things" quip. XD ...Still not sure if cattail rhizome flour or wapato starches would make the right slurry, but I suppose I could get my hands on acorn flour! White oaks are native to Western Washington, and the Coastal Salish and other regional indigenous nations maintained larged savannahs of oaks and hazelnuts, along with berry bushes. It didn't look like traditional European farming, but they did have a very solid agriculturat system prior to colonization. They certainly had the calorie surplus necessary for what became a very complex culture, and the two main things keeping them from advancing their technology alongside their culture were a lack of decent ceramics and knowledge of metalworking. (Ceramics are often a highly overlooked but serious component of metal smelting & forging, since it helps to ensure adequate smelting furnaces and forges, as well as moulds for various tools for softer metals such as copper...which is all over the region.) Ironically, the Salish, the Makah, and other coastal nations on up into Alaska actually already had iron tools. Not many, but they were a result of Chinese traders exchanging them for various furs (seal, polar bear, etc) with Aleutian peoples, who then traded them with the Haida, who then traded with the Makah, and the Salish, etc. Iron axe and adze blades were revered and treasured as family heirlooms, carefully preserved and passed from generation to generation, hand-sharpened and worn down to nubs, because their far less brittle edges were superior in many ways (though not all) to the knapped and polished stone tools otherwise available in the region. They knew the *value* of iron tools, but the First Nations peoples of the region simply didn't know *how* to make them, and never got an opportunity (or an impetus) to learn.

Have you considered just mixing cornstarch powder from the grocery store with water? It's an extremely common thickening agent used in the US and Canada, usually found in the baking isle of grocery stores next to the flours.

Man i'm really interested in how you made that mortar and pestle

While it would be cost ineffective, do you feel that using vinegar for all applications you would traditionally use water for in this process would improve the clay or have no meaningful positive effect? On a similar note: if the vinegar helps prevent fermenting in the clay, would alcohol serve a similar purpose? And as for the hair in the alchemical recipie. Do you find that the added strength from fibers being mixed in helps with pottery? Or only with things like bricks? Great video, you are absolutely brilliant. You have made a meaningful contribution to the field of alchemy 1000 years later. An unbroken chain of scientists, tinkerers, and artisans stretching back to at least Al Raziz himself now smile down upon you with pride.

Cattail plant fluff seems like it could be a great replacement for hair or fur. I have clay in my yard and now I'm extremely interested in trying to do some wild pottery.

I just realised something about my alchemist's clay rocket stove design; the downdraft channels could be repurposed as a charcoal retort, so that charcoal could be made with a regular masonry heater setup, only…the dividers separating the downdrafts from the chimneys are removed, the resulting receptacles capped off and just connected to the central updraft, and…that's the retort for ya!

Maybe you can add some lime either nhl 5(or so) or dehydrated lime, it's something clay plasterers like to do and could make it stronger after heat treatment

Rice was also an ingredient to strengthen the cement for the Great Wall of China. It changes the crystallization in a way that keeps the cement ductile and more earthquake proof.

I'd like to try using straw ash instead of vinegar to inhibit bacteria (taking advantage of its alkaline properties) and reduce part of the charcoal powder, but it may be a while before I get a chance to try this

If I may suggest. For sifting the dry powder I would think an old fashioned flour sifter would speed it up some.

This must be sent to the channel Primitive Technology as soon as possible; half of everything he does is fuled by wild clay pottery

When you inscribe something in clay, try placing clingfilm in the Clay, it should help with tue vlay breaking out and creates a better surface Finish

Al-Razi is pronounced "arraazee". The vowels in the word "Razi" are long vowels and when the definite article "al" comes before R in Arabic, the L turns into an R. Making it "Arraazee".

PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT EVERYTHING