Clay for Pottery
There are so many options of ceramic clays, it can be confusing. How do you determine which clay-based is right for you and your needs as a potter? What do you need to know? How do you discover it?
What Form of Pottery Do You Do?
The kind of ceramics you want to make has an definitely crucial effect on the clay-based body you end up picking. For example, some clay-based systems are excellent for throwing, but would be a catastrophe if you desired to make an outside designed item or hand built.
Like me, you found that you want to use more than one clay-based body. When you use a wide range of development techniques, that is often the best remedy.
Although individuals can do all the features manually that are required to make completed ceramics, it is a number of persistence that most of us these days don't have. Machinery has been designed to help totally restore your power and time for what you probably want most: time invested developing with your clay-based projects.
The first set of devices is that to may a feasible clay-based body.
Do you have a
- clay mixer
- pug mill
- pugger-mixer, or
- will you mix and wedge your clay by hand?
- What equipment do you have to shape your clay?
- potter's wheel
- slab roller
- extruder?
What equipment is available to you for firing your pieces? Do you
- own a kiln
- can rent a kiln, or
- have access to kilns through classes?
To What Temperature Will You Fire?
Clay bodies and glazes need to both mature at the same temperature. Discrepancies between their maturation temperatures can lead to a number of defects in the finished piece.
There are three basic temperature ranges. Although there is some slight variation between individual potters, these ranges are generally considered to be
- Low-Fire: Cone 06 to Cone 3 (1850⁰F - 2135⁰)
- Mid-Range: Cone 4 to Cone 7 (2160⁰F - 2290⁰)
- High-Fire: Cone 8 to Cone 10 (2315⁰F - 2380⁰)
Moist Clay-based Systems compared to Preparing Your Own Clay
Commercially available moist clays are a very practical way to buy clay if you don't have the systems to mix it yourself. This is especially real of the clays that are prepared using a de-airing pug work, which reduces a enormous perform wedging the clay.
There are two benefits of mixing it yourself. The first is economic; moist clay is a good cope more than dry clay and delivery expenditures indicate that. (Remember that 100 weight of dry clay, once together with water, weighs a great deal more.) The other benefits is that in mixing it yourself you can use your own clay body quality recipes and can change themas preferred.
Experiment
One of the best tips on how to discover a clay that is ideal for your needs is to research with various clay bodies. For example, when I have seen a new clay body, I have purchased many bags of several versions of clay that look like what I am looking for. I perform with each clay, forcing them to their boundaries, and observing down on papers my ideas and findings on each one.
Create analyze flooring, servings, alarms, servings, or other analyze items. Shoot them as you normally would, following your regular shooting routine. Examine how the clay body communicates with the glazes you use. You will see how to analyze for a wide range of features at How to Test Clay-based Bodies