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URL: Bluebird Clay Mixers for potters
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https://bluebirdclay.com/pages/clay-mixers
Engineered with heavy-duty stainless steel construction, safety switch for classrooms, studios and production.
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These are behind the art center. A dirty secret. Or an opportunity!
When many clays are in use there is good reason to collect like this - you will see why in a moment. Each barrel is a unique product, a mix of random clays used by students. Each could be thus considered a wild clay, inconsistent throughout and with impurities. As such, each needs to be characterized, as a whole. For example, consider the front barrel: What does it look like when fired at various temperatures? At what temperature does it mature? What is the drying shrinkage and how plastic is it? Does it fit the glazes we use? This information not only describes the clay but also points to what needs to be added to make it useful (e.g. bentonite or feldspar). An account at Insight-Live.com is a way to organize the testing and post the results to a group (the SHAB test, for example, is perfect to describe the plastic, drying and firing properties). Once the clay in a barrel becomes predictable then it becomes useful.
To do the testing it is necessary to get a representative sample from each barrel. The method depends on how processing will be done. In a wet climate, the wet contents are likely to be thrown into a pugmill (with impurities), recycled until mixed and then bagged - a sample can be taken when complete. But the dry climate option is much better: Dewater each barrel, do quartering to get a representative sample and then characterize it. Finally, slake, slurry up batches using a propeller mixer, screen in a vibrating sieve and then dewater (e.g. on a plaster table).
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