: Essaily - Viewing Profile

REcently I made a slab plaster for drying my scraps and discovered a Spanish sulptor who discovered a method of setting plaster in 5 minutes rather than 30 minutes. This was quite exciting idea and tried it and it worked just as he suggested.
Simply add 1% finely ground already set plaster into your mixture and it will quickly set. Adding more finely set plaster speeds up the setting time, though I'm not sure how it affects the drying off time. All the best with that!

I'm also making a little kiln and my own refractory bricks. A pizza oven maker did a test on several brick recipes and found that 40%-50% grog and 50%-6o% fireclay made fairly durable heat resistant and thermal shock resistant bricks. These recipes are also used for raku ware I noticed!

 clay - squish.jpg (34.57K)
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Hi,
if you're still looking for an inexpensive kiln
you can make for virtually nothing -
you might like to check out:

1.New Zealand Potter Pete who has experimented building several wood fired kilns.
2. Lisa Orr fires to earthenware clay to cone 2 in a couple hours
3. Kiln from clay, grass and organic matter by Date Farmer who sucessfully fired bricks and kiln shelves and hundreds of pizzas (not at the same time)
4. Clay Throwerdemonstrates a tiny gas kiln he made

all the best with that!

Hi noticed your interesting clay question,
presently I'm cleaning clay and sieving out the sand,
and using a fine screenprinting mesh to separate the sand from a thin,
runny slip.

I dry it in towels in bucket, the Japanese potters use this method,
rather than plaster bats, which always seem to get stuck to the clay!

I think its worth recycling your terracotta, vinegar and
epsom salt also works for me too - no smell.

I can see the pitting in your red glaze, Weeble - really like that look, like a rock surface! I watched the video again just now, to find out why I like it so much, I don't know, I think its so humble looking with no trace of the maker except for the uneven throwing and understated glaze - that's the reason. Is it food safe btw, with all those pits and bubbles? Thanks for the name of the clay. Not sure we have it in Oz. Shall make my own.