Recycling your Pottery Clay

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As wannabe potters we generally do a lot of practice and with practice comes a lot of failures and lot of scraps. When I first started throwing pottery I pretty much kept everything, good, bad or incredibly ugly. Most of these, I am embarrassed to say, have wound up in my friends and relatives homes where I am sure they only come out when I come over!

But now that I got a few hundred pots under my belt I am more apt to throw a crappy piece into the clay recycle bucket. Not just bad pots can go into this bucket but all the left over scraps. Gather them up and throw them in. One little tip here… (and I don’t mean to be sarcastic), but I am talking about raw clay, pre-bisqued!!

Clay recycle bucket

 

The ultimate in recycling!

Don’t wait until you completely run out of clay to start this process because you will be waiting for your clay and that is no fun at all. I buy 50lb boxes of clay in two 25 lb bags. My rule of thumb is when I open the second bag I recycle my bucket of scraps.

While throwing and trimming I always gather up the scraps and dump them into a 2 gallon bucket I picked up at our local hardware store. I got mine with a lid because I have discovered that fly’s go exploring and get stuck in the wet clay. Yuck.

When I am done throwing and ready to clean up my wheel (confession here… I don’t clean up every time I throw. I generally leave it until I either can’t stand it or can’t find my wheel) I gather up all the scraps and toss them into this bucket. I don’t really care whether there is water in this bucket. Put the crap in, wet or dry. I read somewhere that you should let this clay completely dry out, and when you are ready to start recycling add water and let it sit, but that requires too much advance planning for me!.

So throw the scraps in the bucket and don’t forget the throwing water. It goes in there too.

Eventually my bucket gets filled up.

If there is no water in the bucket at this time I add some to cover all the clay. A couple of days later I plunge my hand into this mess and squish and stir to get it feeling a little more homogeneous.

Stinky Clay Alert  If you have had water in the bucket the whole time it may stink a little like mold. THIS IS GOOD!!! The clay is not bad. It actually is bacteria and it makes the clay work really nice. If you really hate it add a drop or two of Clorox.

Time to let it dry

Since I only have about a gallon of clay to recycle at a time I don’t bother with all the fancy forms, Plaster of Paris molds and other things I read about.  I use canvas!

Canvas PieceGet a piece of canvas, fairly tight woven. You can get it at a fabric store. Not only does it work for this task but when I am rolling out a slab I wet it a  bit and roll it out on this.

The reason I use a piece of canvas is that it is easier to lift the drying clay to flip it over.

Now start piling the clay onto the canvas like below. I would have taken a picture of doing this but I am by myself and it would have made a huge mess of my camera.  Spread the clay out as good as you can. The thinner the clay the faster it will dry.

Recycling Clay

I have had clay take up to a week to dry so check it often. If you poke it with your finger and your finger comes away muddy let it dry more.

You will know when the clay is workable.  When it drys out gather a bunch up and wedge it out.

As a rule of thumb I wedge it while it is still a tad soft and put it in a plastic bag and let it sit a few more days and then wedge it and use it.

Side Note: I have no idea whether mixing clay’s is a good idea but I sometimes do, especially if I just have a small bit of one clay. Of course make sure it matches your firing range. All my clay is cone 6 so I don’t worry about it but you sure don’t want to mix a low fire clay with a high fire clay.

So that is how I do it.

How do you do it. Let us know in the comment field below!!

Practice, Practice, Practice

Waxing the bottoms of a pot before glazing

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If you get glaze on the bottom of your pots and fire them they will stick to the kiln shelf which could result in a lot of damage to your shelf and will ruin the pot you just spent a lot of time on.

Uneven glaze lines

I want straight lines on my pottery bottoms

Somehow, in my early years of learning pottery, I got the notion that the correct way to do this was by using hot paraffin wax.  Then along came my pottery teacher who added motor oil to the mix. I heated it up in an old electric frying pan until it was in a liquid state and then rolled the bottom of my piece in it. The wax would stick to the bisque ware and where ever wax was, glaze would not stick.

If only this was a perfect life but the reality was I hated this method. It was messy, stinky and a real pain in the ass. Not only that but I was not happy with the results I had so I went in search of alternatives. I went to YouTube and watched videos and then read lots of stuff. It seems like this was the only way to do it. Even my pottery teacher uses this method.

But I struggled with it. My wax lines were not straight and some even crawled up the pot. The final blow came when I waxed a whole bunch of pots and hated they way the wax went on so I decided to re-bisque them all and start over. I threw them into the kiln and fired it up. In an hour I could hardly be in the room it was so full of noxious and toxic fumes. I had to leave my studio.  The next day when I retrieved my stuff I could instantly see that there had been a fire inside my kiln.

Pot that stuck to shelf

If one or two of my pots did not stick to the shelf, what would I get to keep for myself!!

My shelves had turned a darker color and there was blacked spots on the pots themselves.

There had to be a better way.

So I asked went to Linkedin and asked other potters! What do they do. What are some alternatives.   And, oh man, did I get some outstanding ideas.

Here they are…. 

Wax Resist- This seems to be the most common method but not everyone likes it.  You can mix it with water which makes it go on smoother but you need to experiment with how much water to use. It apparently differs by brand.

To apply it you can use an oriental type brush that comes to a point, or a foam square or old sponge.

Wax resist can get on other parts of your pieces if you are not careful, and rebisquing seems to be the best solution to repairing this. When the resist burns off there are no stinky fumes (I would like that).  If your product is clear you can add a dab of food coloring so you can see it. If you need to you can turn your piece upside down on a banding wheel and paint it on.

NO WAX NEEDED

Here are a few ideas that I really liked and these are the ones I am experimenting with.

A wet sponge- Yeah, how simple is that. Since I paint my glaze on I don’t have a ton of glaze on the bottoms to begin with but what I do can be easily wiped off with a wet sponge

A piece of tight pile carpet or a piece of foam wetted – Rub and twist the bottom of your pot on a wet piece of tight pile (like berber) carpet or a piece of upholstery foam. It takes most of the glaze off and leaves a nice line. You can put the carpet or foam in a baking dish with some water to keep it wet and it will need to be rinsed off every once in a while.

One potter suggested that when you trim the leather hard piece to burnish the foot with a steel rib. This removes or flattens the clay making it smoother which makes the glaze come off easier. Another potter suggested wetting the bottom of the pot prior to applying the glaze so that the glaze doesn’t saturate the clay as much and comes off easier.

So now you have some better, cheaper, safer and healthier ways of protecting your pot bottoms from sticking to the kiln shelves. Try one or try them all. Let us know what you do or what worked (or didn’t) for you.

Also A BIG THANK YOU for all the wonderful potters who shared their experience and advise on Linkedin. I belong to the Pottery Association Group and the Pottery Group and they are so helpful.

Spent the morning with Ceramic Cottage in Tulsa and 4 very important tips

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As new potters we look for avenues to expand our learning.

Having begun my foray into pottery in Southern California I was a bit spoiled when it came to getting supplies and lessons.  I had several pottery supply places pretty dang cloasdse to home.

When I got to Oklahoma I looked and looked and the closest supply house I could find was in Oklahoma City, a 3 1/2 hour drive. Then I found the Ceramic Cottage in Tulsa. Now Tulsa is not in “my backyard”, it took me two hours today to get there, but the drive is easy and beautiful.

Ceramic Cottage in Tulsa OK

Ceramic Cottage in Tulsa. That plate in the background is what we were making.

I am glad I made the drive. This unassuming yet vibrant shop caters to ceramicists but they do have some supplies that made me, a wheel throwing wanna be potter,  happy. This shop focuses mainly on bisqueware, of which they have a ton, But they also carry high fire clay (armadillo clay in my fav, Cinco Rojo, and high fire glaze by Duncan and Mayco,I chose today to go because they were offering a short two hour workshop on using Duncan EZ-Stroke on bisqueware.  E-Z stroke is a low fire (04) translucent underglaze that you can use to paint pictures, (we painted lemons) and then, after firing to 04, you apply a clear glaze and refire to 06. I had to leave my plate there for them to fire because I don’t fire anything else at that range (yet)!

My goal is to try everything and anything pertaining to Pottery and finding this little gem of a store, tucked away on a side street in Tulsa (I drove by it twice before I noticed it even though my Garmin was telling me I was there) is perfect for this.

The store is owned and operated by Annie, a vibrant woman who made me feel like I was her very most important client… ever!!!  She bounced around telling me (selling me) on switching from Amaco glaze (“it molds in the bottle”) to Mayco and Duncan. She loaded me up with literature and then asked me about how I fire my stuff.

I learned a ton from here about firing so here is…

TIP # 1 – When putting the cone into the cone sitter make sure the stamped number is facing down and use Kiln Wash  on the activator rod.

I had heard the  Kiln Wash on the activator thing before but have never done it before and every firing I have EVER done I have starred at that blasted cone wondering just how it is supposed to go into the Kiln SItter. Now I know and I will never forget. If you do forget read the box. It is on there. She showed me where it is written, I never saw it before.

Duncan E-Z StrokeTIP # 2 – Close all peep holes after two hours of firing to slow my firing down, and leave the lid open at least one each for the entire firing.

There has been a lot of discussion all over the internet about peep holes, but I will try it Annies way and see what happens.

The E-Z Stroke workshop was awesome.

The instructor for the E-Z Stroke workshop, Cathy Housley, was a bundle of energy who rapid talked us all the way through the entire plate. Her directions were clear, the class flowed and each of us walked away with a piece that will be treasured, once they are fired that is! Painting with E-Z stroke was very similar to tole painting. You can have two colors on your brush to make wonderful color blends. Cathy is a “Duncan Ambassador” which I am guessing is like an Expert.

We also got to use wax resist, which I have never done before, to protect portions of our painting while painting other sections. My next blog will be about Waxing the bottom of your pots and Wax resist so check back.

Cathy also shared some gems with us.

Painting with Duncan E-Z Stroke. We painted it like Tole Painting.

Painting with Duncan E-Z Stroke. We painted it like Tole Painting.

TIP 3 – Dip your brush in dish soap and work it into the bristles before dipping it in Wax Resist. The wax resist will still work perfectly but the soap will protect your brush from the wax resist.

TIP 4 – Never ever use a degreasing or antibacterial dish soap (gotta get rid of Dawn!) with your brushes. Always use a mild regular soap like Joy.

So I hope you learned a little and maybe one of these 4 tips will be an “A Ha” moment. As usual, I would love for you to leave comments and share your experiences.  And of course, feel free to share with your Wanna Be Potter Friends.