Three gifts have just fallen into our lap

Reflecting on where we have been and need to go

Mother Nature has been good to us. Our primary quarry in Ravenscrag, Saskatchewan, has served us for almost 50 years. Our native clay bodies are very different from competitors who make theirs using 200 mesh imported industrial minerals and clay powders. Ours are rustic, having texture (because we grind to 42 mesh). It has always felt good to tell customers: "This is what Mother Nature gives us". We have made a science out of using such bodies beyond what would normally be possible, perfecting published reference and how-to material over many years. However, change has happened. Expectations have increased. A much greater percentage of users are hobbyists who prefer not to deal with documentation, they want bodies with "margin for error". Vast new glaze options have surfaced and they look better on whiter, smoother and finer particled clay bodies. Thus, for many customers, our native bodies are not vitreous enough, not white enough, not smooth enough, not plastic enough or too speckled. The trend has thus been a relentless move toward us making more and more bodies from imported materials, especially porcelains.

Gifts from three sources have just fallen into our lap, these would enable making bodies of unprecedented quality yet at prices no competitor could come close to matching. These would greatly reduce the need to resort to bodies made from imported materials. Here are the gifts:
-Mother Nature: Fireclays, kaolins and ball clays of unbelievable quality in other parts of the province.
-The current economic climate: Extra motivation to "go Canadian, making the bodies people want using these new clays.
-We don't have to open a new mine, existing mines in the "El Dorado" zone are available.

Related Pictures

Plainsman Ravenscrag Quarry in 2025:

It is Getting Complicated

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This has served the company for almost 50 years. The grinding plant, which has also served 50 years, has been able to process these clays to 20 and 42 mesh. While this quarry has been a key advantage for the company and coarsely ground bodies still sell well, the demand for smoother, more plastic and whiter bodies has seen a steady trend to the use of more and more imported 200 mesh powders (eg. clays, feldspar, silica) to make bodies. The star clay in the quarry is 3B, it is smooth and contains natural feldspar. Minings are typically done now just to get it. But because it is near the bottom (there are 6 layers plus overburden), others continue to bloat the inventory of unneeded materials (some of these piles are 30+ years old). On the next mining, the cost of stockpiling the overlying layers vs discarding them will have to be rationalized.

Most of these piles (especially the ball clay) could be sold on the open market if 200 mesh grinding was possible. The most serious problem is the amount of overburden that must be removed. Perhaps even more serious, since other clays are not needed, the 3B has to bear the entire cost of the mining. Now that better, more accessible and easier to mine clays further east have been found, the way forward is looking much better. In fact, it looks so promising (with testing of course) that it could be time to begin reclaiming this site.

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