For anyone wondering, clay can be harvested from just about any dirt; but best harvested near any stream/ water source; even on the banks from flooding. This is due to the water bringing the light mineral clay deposits to the surface consistently. Happy harvesting! 😊
I didn’t hear or see details about the bisque or glaze firing temperature. Is this clay low-fire earthenware or high-fire stoneware? At what point in the process can you make that assessment and how would you do it? This is a thorough video on the separation mechanics, but I would like more technical details on the clay body evaluation. Thanks, good job.
Bro thank you for showing how you harvested it. I’m new to this and this is just what I needed, been picking at some spots close by and digging holes, but i know exactly where to go now. I live by a creek bed so I’ve been getting decent stuff but if I hike a bit down it there is flowing water, excited to try it
This looks exactly like my local clay in color and texture. Everything around me is named "Kaolin" or "White Clay". Tempering with a bit of fine sand seems to help control cracking. I'm doing raku with mine and it's proved to be pretty durable in the kiln, even if it's a bit difficult to work with. There's a lot of fine mica in mine (sparkly clay), so maybe that's a factor as well.
If yours is like mine, there's a video around about adding water left over from a rice boil to hydrate the clay instead of plain water and it makes a huge difference. will ferment though if left in a bag
I’m just wondering why you didn’t add temper? Was it an experiment to see if you could get wild clay with enough temper mixed in already? I’m curious about your process. 👍
Grog really is dependant on how you're firing the wild clay pieces. If you have access to a kiln it *may* not be necessary. Grog is often added to wild clay for more primitive firing - pit firing, etc, to account for the thermal shock the pieces go through with heating and cooling quickly. Andy Ward, Tony Soares and Atomic shrimp all have great videos explaining the whys and hows of processing and firing wild clay and the addition of grog, as well as kinds of grog that can be used 😊
That’s a beautiful white clay. Thanks to all the volcanic activity where I’m at we get red clay here. But yes as others have stated, grind that cup down into powder and add it to temper the remaining clay harvested. Any clay you harvest yourself will always have to be tempered. The amount you temper depends on the clay though. So you’ll have to experiment. I suggest some simple tiles or drink coasters in order to find your ratios and to minimize clay use while maximizing testability.
Loved this! I had some construction done and they completely tore up the yard and now it's COVERED in clay. So far I have to have at least 10 5-gallon buckets worth of clay. I want to have a home studio one day and this was definitely a sign that I should. Do you have any tips on processing and firing? Where did you figure out how to do this?
thats sweet! typically clay that is found closer to the earths surface will be a low fire clay body. wait for the clay to be bone dry, then add water to turn it into slip. after that sift the clay through screens and then through cloth to remove all impurities of all shapes and sizes. once you have clean slip its pretty much just a waiting game for all the water to evaporate and the clay becomes workable again. there are lots of different ways to fire clay, we use gas kilns that fire with propane. There are many ways to do this process too.
Im in N.Texas our clay is heavy and red all around the dirt from 3inches down all the way down to who knows theres a ton around me and in all the yards ive been in around here.. i bet the creeks are filled
😂😂😂 im sorry man but smashing the leather hard clay is not the most efficient way to do this. Let it get bone dry as is. Then throw the big chunks straight into buckets of water. No need for smashing. Theyll crumble and turn into slip in minutes. The quick absorption of water breaks up the dry clay body easily. You still may have to use a paint mixer to get rid of lumps but its still faster than smashing hard clay with a hammer. Work smarter not harder. Use your extra time to do gather more clay, work on other projects, etc.
Weeks later??? If thats how long you are waiting for the slip to become workable clay, you are doing it all wrong. Here's another tip. Make 2 plaster slabs 2'×4'×4in (thick). Dry the slabs of plaster for a 2-4 days in the sun or heat or at the very least put a fan to it. Design the slabs to have a wooden border at least 2 to 3 inches higher than the plaster itself. Pour the slip onto one slab and let the plaster absorb the water out the clay. This can take 20 minutes to 3hrs depending on wetness and weather. Its far faster than weeks. Put a fan to it, lay in the sun, or leave 6 feet from a hot kiln to speed up the process. (Do not put under or too close to a kiln because plaster can explode especially when soaked with water.)Use one slab at a time. When the first slab is in a malleable state, scrape off with a wide puddy knife and its ready to wedge. While this slab dries, use the already dry slab and repeat the process. I hope this helps.
I have thickest red clay in my yard and environs. It makes terracotta?. This grey stuff is nice, I used to see big patches of it, along black basalt creek beds.
You have to fire it to find the results. Grey clay can fire white, or orange, or yellow. Brown clay can fire red or white. White clay can fire black, brown, green, blue, etc. It all depends on the minerals of your environment. Where I’m at in the PNW there’s a lot of volcanic ash mixed in, so it appears tan, and fires to a near terra cotta like color, however it’s not terra cotta.
@@DLCoates1 brick kiln I worked at, specialised in a blue brick..(the clay was white, I recall, and we did an oxygen reduction in the processing).. the kiln was originally a mobile train type, (which were not uncommon, apparently?). Messy old sawdust/coal fired kiln.. looked like a coalminer, at a shifts end.
@@DLCoates1 I assume the yellow/red stuff?.. kiln I worked, was a railway kiln, (originally), travelled with the railroad for building stations..(they built permanent kilns along the way?).
@@duellingscarguevara that’s what we have here. I called it tan just because it’s a bit more on the brown side than yellow but there is a slight yellow hue when saturated and pre fired. When leather hard it’s more grayish brown. Upon firing it turns brick red.
yes search for primitive clay firing techniques, Andy Ward does some good examples. They wont be food safe but it is doable. You can partly seal them for use with water to some degree using certain primitive methods. @jojoacrylic
Wood firing is a good way to harden clay. You can use certain chemicals to add coloration but it is not food safe. You start but placing the greenware farther away from the fire to get the clay use to the temperature, and over time slowly bring the pot closer, you then cover the pot in ashes and build up the fire around it. We will be doing a video on this in the near future.
I originally built a primitive wood kiln out of some patio bricks, and could get it hot enough to chemically change the clay to ceramic, though I could still scratch it with my fingernail and it was very porous. Having a bellows to force some air into the fire helps get the temperature up. I wanted to go to the next level, so I built a small gas fired kiln out of ceramic blanket (bought online), some wire metal fencing for structure, a weed burner from the hardware store, and a barbecue propane gas tank. An inexpensive digital thermocouple, also from Amazon, shows me that I can hit 2,000F, which is more than hot enough for raku and low fire glazes, and fires the clay to a much higher hardness (though still not stoneware). There's plenty of RU-vid videos on how to make a raku kiln like this, which were helpful in guiding me. The only things I do differently from them is that once I mix my raw clay with water and strain it, I let it sit for a couple of days to let silt and other non-clay settle to the bottom. I then pour off only the top layer of clay into a doubled bedsheet and let it hang/drip for a week or so to remove the added water. That silt makes the clay hard to work with - very floppy/droopy. I then add back some fine sand or crushed ceramic grog to minimize shrinking/cracks since I'm doing raku.
The crack monster is fairly cruel?. Something zen, about pursuits, just as likely to not likely to succeed?. (When it works out, it’s a good day?). Happy Saturday.
