Who else here /nativepottery/? A while ago I figured I'd

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>>2751450

Anyway, after that successful test I went out to that stream again and this time I came back with probably 50 pounds of clay which I've started processing. I also used a good chunk of the clay I already cleaned to make a second pot in the same way as the first, only bigger (pic related again). I'm really enjoying this stuff so I've decided I'm going to get a cheap throwing wheel and maybe some refractory bricks to make a more proper kiln. I'm not going to buy any clay though, since I already have access to an essentially unlimited supply of good clay for free, plus I actually like the process of cleaning it. Also, there's something really cool about just digging up some dirt form the ground near your house and turning it into an actual item through nothing but your own work.

I highly recommend to anyone who doesn't live in the city to go out and gather and clean and fire your own clay stuff, even just once as an experiment. If you do live in the city and you have enough money to throw around you should buy a small kiln, I personally think I'm going to either continue using just wood to fire my things or maybe switch to making my own charcoal and using that for a hotter temperature.

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>>2751451

Here's a detail of the bottom of the second pot I've made. I haven't fired it yet and it isn't fully dried, but I don't see any cracks or anything and the clay sounds good when I tap it. If this one turns out I'm probably going to use it as a plant pot, but the small one I'm going to keep as a knick knack probably forever. Hopefully no one uses it as an ashtray.

That second pot is probably half the size of the biggest one I feel like I could make without a wheel, it was getting pretty wonky looking during shaping and I had to trim a few centimeters off of the top to make it an even height. I'm hoping I can find a pottery wheel someone is selling nearby soon, because I don't want to have to end up paying a lot of shipping from ordering online.

Have you anons done any clay work before? Ever sold any? I'd like to get into this as a hobby but if I could make some cash along the way to have it pay for itself that'd be awesome.

One of the cooler things I've seen on /ic/ lately. Your pots turned out great, nice colour. I'm going to do this now. I have clay in a big hole in my backyard and I'd like some custom plant pots. That bit about possibly selling is alluring too.

>>2751460

Thanks man, fingers crossed for when I fire the second one. Just remember to wedge your clay a lot before you try to use it, makes working with it much easier and you end up with a stronger finished piece.

>>2751491
Thanks for the tip, it's time to get muddy. I'll post something here if the thread's still alive later.

>>2751450
Wow, something interesting on /ic/. Kudos, looking good.

>>2751457
Needs loomis

>>2751450
>>2751451
>>2751457
Neat! I've been a potter for about 20 years.

Hm.. I don't think you will be able to get a salt glaze in pit-fired temperatures, but you might get some random whitish-blue flashes. You really need an enclosed kiln design. Basically, when NaCl vaporizes, the sodium attacks the silica in the clay and starts to flux it, turning it glassy. You have to do repeated salt dumps to keep building up the bloblets that form, growing them larger until you get full coverage. You'll often still see traces of that in an orange-peel texture on those pots. Oh, caution: yes, the other part of the vapor is chlorine gas. This kills you. Many potters choose sodium carb (Na2Co3) instead for this reason.

I lurk here, but rarely post. I could go on for a long time about the magical secrets of ceramics if anyone gives a shit. Obviously salts are a fascinating topic to me.

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>>2751655
I give a shit.
So I just finished digging up and refining this clay. The unrefined version was super rocky, now it's just very coarse.

What's the best way to go about using coarse clay like this? I'm only looking to make some nice pots.

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>>2751746
Internet tells me that having sand in the clay is good for successful earthenware firing, stops it from cracking in the kiln.
Here's my refined clay, I'm gonna have to leave it for tomorrow to let the clay separate from the excess water. Then I think I'm going to wrap the clay in a cloth and leave it to dry/drain until it's workable.
Will update then, thread status permitting.

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I did a tiny bit of pottery stuff at uni, but went to a 10 week class as an adult learner thing in the evenings, while pregnant with my son.
I have a bunch in the house, they hold pens, paintbrushes, and/or get used in still lifes.
I was going for the Wabi-sabi think at the time, I know they are not 'perfect'!

>>2751814
2016 and I still get amazed when an anon turns out to be a she

>>2751860
im amazed why a mom would be using a shitposting board for 20 year old failures that will never make it

>>2751865
I assume even shitposters become parents

>>2751655

Cool info, I actually was using an enclosed improvised kiln I threw together, not just a pit. I dug a small hole and surrounded it with a cylindrical stack of bricks with a patio stone on top, wrapped mostly with fiberglass insulation. Before I stacked the bricks I laid down a section of cage wire over the hole to set the cup on. The hole had a trench leading off to one side, which is what I used to feed thinly chopped sticks of maple wood into the fire. It also allowed air to be drawn from below through the burning fuel and into the kiln chamber.


To start the firing I lit a small pile of wood chips inside the hole below the kiln. I tried to get the fire to grow slowly, and eventually I was feeding in half inch wide sticks of wood as fast as they were being consumed. The sticks were actually only burning to charcoal before shattering and adding to a deep bed of coals, which were glowing very hot from the air being drawn over them through the trench. I think this is where most of the heat was actually coming from rather than the flames themselves. The air flow through the kiln came in through the bottom trench, was superheated by the bed of coals, and rose to fill the chamber before flowing out through a few small gaps between the bricks where I didn't wrap any insulation. This thing got way hotter than I expected, the inner layers of fiberglass that were touching the bricks actually fused together slightly into a crusty mass. The metal wires were also affected and had sagged down to almost touching the bed of coals about six inches below where they started.

I over-sized my improvised wood kiln a huge amount for such a small piece because I plan on using it to fire multiple large pieces at once instead of just one small cup. I figure the longer path the hot air will have to take to leave the kiln will also help more heat from the fire to absorb into the clay by forcing it to slow down, making it way more efficient.

>>2751776

An old inside-out pillowcase makes the best clay drying bag in my experience, they have a close weave and no loose fibers, plus they're cheap and if you use an old one you never use anymore they're free.

Just remember to massage the clay around a little inside the bag once every day or so, otherwise the outside of the ball will start to firm up much faster than the inside, which will still be very sticky. You want to avoid accidentally making a big mud flavored fruit gusher, makes a mess.

>>2751865
You don't stop living art, and/or shitposting, just because you get older.

>>2751934
Hey, not bad! I'd like to see a photo of your kiln to see if I could make any design suggestions. It sounds like a simple updraft bottle/beehive design. It's great that you have a distinct stoking chamber. You're miles ahead of most people who attempt this. If you go get a bag of silica sand, you can mix that into some thick, course clay slurry to use as a mortar for filling gaps in your bricks. Just do a very, very slow fire up to make sure the patches don't crack. The sand reduces shrinkage. this will greatly improve heat retention.

For evenness, and to achieve hotter temperatures, you need to also address the chimney. Basically, it should be about 2x the height of the main firing chamber itself. The distinction between chamber and chimney flue is blurred in updraft bottle kilns, but you want your design to essentially be an inverted funnel. Since the warm air rises, and is constricted by the narrow opening at the top of the stack, the draw increases, forcing air to be sucked into the coals faster and giving you more heat. Think of it like a passive bellows that draws from the other end rather than blowing into the coals. I usually recommend people make an 8" diameter or so tube, about a foot or two tall (can be sectional) to set on the apex of the chamber over the hole. You must have a flat slab of fired clay to act as a damper to cover the exit flue of the chimney. This controls heat recirculation and evenness. The amount of wood fuel and primary air from the burning down below gives you the power, but the chimney and flue damper lets you control it. So yeah, ditch that paver soon.

>>2751746
>>2751776
Well, at some point the chunks and rocks might piss you off. Levigating it prior to wetting it is just what you do. I usually just get it wet and smooth enough with a paddle mixer then pass it through a 60-mesh screen. Any chunks bigger than that are released back into the wild.

>>2751938
This works pretty well.

>>2751776
Yeah, sand or grog (which is pre-fired, crushed clay) reduce shrinkage during drying and heating overall. It creates small channels through which water passes. It wicks moisture from one area of the piece to another promoting evenness, making it less susceptible to cracks. these are referred to as "open" bodies. The downside, if you have too much is that you will sacrifice plasticity to the point that all you'll be able to make with it are very simple forms or press-molded forms. These properties of gritty, sandy clay are how humans discovered glaze, which led to the invention of glass...

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This goan be good.

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>>2752709
It's all coming together now. Behold my naturally sourced clay.

>>2753936
Lotta work, huh? I'd argue that all clay is naturally sourced, but I get what you mean. Did you know a lot of clays are dug out only incidentally by mining operations when going for more valuable minerals? If you live anywhere near a quarry, you ought to call 'em up and ask. A lot of times they'll let you fill up your truck bed with clay for free. Start acquiring 5 gallon buckets.

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OP here with an update.

I've made two more little pots as you can see, both using the 'pinch-pot' method. I find it a little finicky, but not overly difficult, and much less frustrating than the coil method. I was actually able to make one of those two pots while sitting in front of the TV.

I also made a couple of test tiles and a batch of ash glaze, going by 25% ash and 75% dry clay by weight. Once they dried up (only took about an hour because I made the tiles super thin) I tried firing them as hot as I could get the fire in my wood-stove to go, but although the tiles were definitely fired, the test glaze didn't seem to react at all. Does anyone have any experience with ash glazes, how hot they need to be fired, how long they need to be fired for, etc? I'm really itching to get my first successful glaze made with materials native to my area, I'd appreciate any help. I've tried looking it up but every website I look at is frustratingly non specific.

>>2754002
Sure all clay comes form the ground, but there's something cool about being able to go outside with a shovel and with the dirt you dig up eventually create a useful product.

Post pics of kiln.

How do you find the right temperature and regulate it?

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It's not pretty like>>2754877
but I'm proud of it.
The form is all wonky but once I had the clay actually sticking together without cracking I wasn't going to take any chances. Next time I'll refine the clay a lot more. Sandpapered all my callouses off working this badboy into shape. Used a vague mixture of coil and pinch.
Time to fire it and stick a cactus in it.

>>2755009

If you're just looking for a heat that will cause your clay to bond together into earthenware that won't fall apart in water you can simply dig a shallow pit, light a small fire in the pit to drive off moisture and provide a low heat, set the pot into the small fire once it's mostly burned down, then cover the pot in a large amount of good dry fuel. This fuel can be anything from chopped up wooden logs to long dry grass to corn husks. You want your fuel to be very dry and also light enough that it won't risk damaging your clay items mid-firing when the fuel pile inevitably starts to collapse down. Your fuel pile should be at least big enough to leave behind enough ashes and embers to completely cover the pot, which is important to both insulate the pot against rapid temperature changes and to keep it above the firing temperature for as long as possible.

You'll know you're at the firing temperature if your pots are glowing at least a dull red. The hotter you go, the stronger the bonds the clay in your pots will form, making a more durable product. It is extremely important to let your pieces dry as completely as possible before attempting to fire them, since even the tiniest bit of residual moisture will cause a steam explosion that will blow apart your work and possibly damage any other nearby pots you've made as well. To make sure they are absolutely dry before firing you should let them sit in a place with good airflow and low humidity for about a week, then immediately before the firing 'bake' your pots by sitting them on top of a wood stove/next to a space heater to warm them until they're hot to the touch but below 100 degrees C, just to help drive off any significant residual moisture.

Your clay items will still have a rough texture after firing and will be porous but no longer dissolve into soft clay in water. There's also a really good chance that they'll have soot marks, but I find those just add character.

>>2754877
I hope you're measuring your glaze materials by weight. It helps to keep consistency. My tentative guess for a 50/50 unwashed wood ash/red clay glaze is cone 9-11. Approximately 2300ºF, or yellow-white heat. A 25/75 may be hotter, and is likely far too close to the melting point of the clay itself. In other words, by the time your glaze melts, so too will the pot. The reason though that you're not finding specific information is because the chemical compositions of wood ashes and clay vary greatly depending on the type of plant matter and what various shit in your clay is.

You need to find out how hot you can get your kiln, if by no other measurement the color: dull red, cherry red, orange, yellow, white. Then you can use that to refer to the Orton pyrometric cone charts, and either buy some cones in the suitable range to start measuring, or continue to wing it by drawing rings of clay out of the kiln when it looks right. (As an aside, since before the invention of pyrometers or pyrometric cones, potters relied on experience and draw tiles, or draw rings–rings of clay that were made of the same clay and glazes as the ware, set up just inside the kiln's spy hole and fished out with a poker or tongs, quenched so the maturity could be assessed.) With a consistent, known temperature it is much easier to formulate glazes that melt at the sweet spot through proportional line blends of those two ingredients.

What you're wanting to do is very hard without any known variables or points of reference. I couldn't give you any specific answer without some data.

>>2755060
Thanks for the advice, I was going by weight but only mixed about 5 grams of ashes in with 15 grams of dry clay powder for a small test, I will try a few different ratios using more ashes next time.

>>2755326
Naw, get it in there now so you can rule out what doesn't work and not have tail-chasing daydreams. Every firing I try to get as much data as possible so that the next one yields exponentially greater results. At the very least, I'd throw in tests that run the entire gamut of proportions, even if the increments are fairly spread out:
#1 100/0
#2 75/25
#3 50/50
#4 25/75
#5 0/100

If you get anything desirable, now you know the rough range that it'll happen within your temperature range. Then you simply expand the line blend between those two test tiles with more increments. This is the efficient way to find the magical eutectic point.

See, the thing about wood ash is that the primary flux is calcuim carbonate. It's very powerful over 2200ºF, but under, not so much. May actually raise the melting point of the glaze. The cool thing about it, and why it was so fucking prevalent in the ancient kilns is that with all the trace elements in it like potassium and silica, given a high enough temp it could be a single-ingredient glaze material. I think the clay content in those ancient recipes was essentially a binder for easier application.

If I were you, I'd start looking around for some stronger lower-temp fluxes and start doing triaxial blends. I'm thinking soduim carbonate or sodium bicarbonate. Hey, does using common chemicals found in your kitchen count as locally sourced? It does to me.

>>2755502
Mm, and borax. That one'll give you some good low-temp fluxing power. Anyway, see why I said salts are fascinating?

The other day, I was poised to ramble about how as a young man, I re-discovered efflorescing Egyptian faience ware by by mixing random shit from the kitchen into clay and trying to melt it. Oh boy, was it a good day when I found the baking soda.

bumping for progress photos

>>2751457
Hey this is actually really neat anon I like it.Im going to be working with clay I believe this week or next week.I have to make a vase as well as a tile for a mosaic in class

>>2760478

Cool dude, one thing you should keep in mind to prevent yourself from getting extremely frustrated; clay will go anywhere you let it go if you apply force. Unless you restrict it, clay will go sideways and in all sorts of directions that you don't want it to go. The trick to working with clay is to give it no other choice but to flow where you want it to go, by shaping your hands correctly and applying uniform pressure.

You'll get the hang of it as long as you stick to it.

>>2760566
Appreciate the advise,I will definetly be applicating it.Hopefully my results turn out to be good.