January 2026
Jan. 7
With
snow on the ground and highs around freezing, I'm going to stop making
my local claybody until things warm up. But here's the current
process (I made need to refresh myself with it after a couple months
off:
I
have put aside about 400 lbs of raw clay in bins so I don't have to get
under the tarps if there's warm weather for working but snow still on
the clay pile...
This
I bought for making apple cider, which only happens a couple times per
year. It has a hand cranked wheel which rotates the material
clookwise into the two rollers which guarantee a coarse but regular
product. Because of the multiple bars on the left side, I found
it better at breaking clay clods by reversing the direction. The
bars hold the clod while the rotating knives slice through it...
The only glitches occur when the few rocks in the clay make it
stop, and must be picked out before resuming.
Pebbles can get through in this process.
This
is one of the bins which get set under the grinder to collect the clay,
which was previously weighed to 60 lbs for the batch.
That
clay gets water added from a hose with a spray attachment, until it is
thin enough to go through the sieve which is glued in the bottom of the
bucket on the tripod. A red plastic paintmixer on a drill is used
to greatly expedite this process. Then the bin is transferred up
to the bench shown on the right, and 20 lbs of OM#4 ball clay and 4 lbs
of grog are added, for greater dry strength and plasticity. With
the water, the batch approaches 100 lbs...
Late
this fall I built this set of shelves so I can dry the sloppy clay,
which after hand mixing is deposited on boards to dry out to the point
it can be wedged.
Then I cut it into pieces that will fit in my
pug mill and put it through to thoroughly mix it, and store it in old
clay bags. It is immediately usable for throwing.
Because I
only started this process this fall, I bought one 50 lb bag of grog,
and realized I might run out before spring when a friend picks up
supplies for me in Seattle.
So I have succeeded in making my own grog by rubbing the dry clay through window screen and bisque firing it.:
The
canister has about 4 lbs of fired grog, and the bin it sits in has the
raw clay which I used to make it, and also I use it as part of my new
glaze base, which uses 1/3 of my native clay.
Jan. 13
Great sunset tonight
Sondahl blog index
