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Consider the advantages of making your own clay bodies using a propeller mixer and plaster table.
-Independence: You control product availability, quality and consistency.
-Flexibility: You control the recipe (with our help if needed). Fine-tune and adjust it over time to fit your needs and compensate for variations in material properties and supply.
-Special-purpose clay bodies are possible, ones that ceramic suppliers do not or cannot make.
-The slurry up process achieves better mixing and deairing than any pugmill. No aging needed.
-A mixer and plaster table are useful for so many other things in a pottery studio.
-Achieving the right stiffness is an integral part of the process.
-Recycling scrap, by slaking, fits the process.
-Local native clays: Slurries enable the use of a magnet to remove iron, a sieve to remove particulates and a settling process to remove soluble salts.
-It is rewarding - you will own the whole process, the bragging rights alone make it worthwhile for me!
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Some simple equipment is all you need. You can do practical tests to characterize a local clay in your own studio or workshop (e.g. our SHAB test, DFAC test, SIEV test, LDW test). You need a gram scale (preferably accurate to 0.01g) and a set of callipers (check Amazon.com). Some metal sieves (search "Tyler Sieves" on Ebay). A stamp to mark samples with code and specimen numbers. A plaster table or slab. A propeller mixer. And, of course, a test kiln. And you need a place to put all the measurement data collected and learn from it (e.g. an account at insight-live.com).
Projects |
Slurry Mixing and Dewatering Your Own Clay Body
Weigh out the ingredients, mix them using your propeller mixer and then dewater and fine-tune the stiffness on your plaster table. |
Articles |
Formulating a Porcelain
The principles behind formulating a porcelain are quite simple. You just need to know the purpose of each material, a starting recipe and a testing regimen. |
Articles |
Formulating a body using clays native to your area
Being able to mix your own clay body and glaze from native materials might seem ridiculous, yet Covid-19 taught us about the need for independence. |
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