Wednesday 21 April 2010

Local Somerset Clay

My previous trials on my locally dug clay, proved that on it's own it would not hold water once glazed and fired. So I have been mixing it 50/50 with the clay I buy from Stoke.

In these pics I have 7lbs of Stoke clay and 3lbs of Local clay. the local one being the yellow colour.



Interesting to see how the wedging process works as I mix them together.
Don't tell me
"there is a face in that"
I don't want to Know!
Any way carrying on


A few minuets later.



and the final result of a 70/30 mix.
The Local clay is much softer than the bag clay which I felt would be great for making a bigger pot.



So here is 10lbs on the wheel.

It was fantastic to throw with, just perfect for a larger pot and it made it so easy.

This Pancheon below is 15" wide.
and the three flower pots you can see on the new shelf system are a 50/50 blend and thrown very quickly as the old guys would have done in the past.






I'm on top of my orders now and it was good to have a little time to play and experiment with the local clay.

4 comments:

Hollis Engley said...

How did you prepare the native clay, Paul? I've had some local clay here, which proved to be a natural cone 10 stoneware, but I just removed the roots and large rocks, dried and slaked it and then threw it by itself. A very funky and rough clay body, but it made interesting pots and worked well with my high-fire Shino glazes. Wish i could get more. Yours looks pretty smooth and seems to blend well with the commercial clay body.

Wendy 'Pixie Pete' said...

How local is 'local?'

Paul Jessop said...

"Puckington" about 1 mile from the workshop.
Hollis, it comes from the ground in hard dry lumps with stones, roots etc: so I soak it down to a runny slip put it through a 30 mesh sieve leave it to settle in a bucket pour off the excess water then dry it on a plaster batt. and just wedge it up from there. it is very smooth with a slight sandy quality. but very tactile.

Hollis Engley said...

Yes, that sounds more or less like what I've done, though it looks like you were a bit more careful about removing most of the stones. Looks like pretty smooth stuff.

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