#wedging

Today was a successful day

I reclaimed about 12kg of clay. I threw these 11 tiny bowls by throwing off the hump with about 1kg of that clay. I turned 3 bowls I threw yesterday and they’re perfect. I balanced my wheel yesterday so it’s easier to centre now, and to make proper round bowls.

Reclaiming clay When I started out doing pottery, one of the things I was most confused by was reclaiming clay. I’ve got a handle on it now though so thought I would share. The way I do it is:

Put all the clay in a bucket with lots of water. For this batch I even added some bone dry clay after smashing it up with a rubber mallet.

Let it sit til all the excess water on top goes clear. This usually only takes overnight.

Use a sponge to soak up the excess water. It’s easier that way not to disturb the clay compared to trying to scoop it out or pour it off.

If I think it might be lumpy I stick my hands in and squish the lumps up. Normally though it’s all from throwing or turning so it’s just slurry.

Pour the clay into my reclaiming tub, which is a plastic tub with plaster in a layer on the bottom. I like this, rather than just a slab of plaster because the clay can be liquid slurry and I can still use it because it’s container by the tub. Other methods require the clay to already be at the sticky stage.

Spread the clay out in the tub and wait for a day or two. How long it takes to dry out depends on the weather. Today I sat it out in the sun for a few hours to help it along. I checked on it and turned it frequently though. On a hot day the surface can get too dry quite quickly.

Once it’s dry enough to stick together, I pull it out of the tub and put it onto some fibre cement board. This is also quite absorbent and will suck some more water out of it. Normally I just put it onto my work table because I don’t have very much (my table has a sheet of fibre cement on the top) but this time I put it on a board, then flipped it onto a 2nd board when the first was saturated. When the first one was dry, I swapped them again. Repeat for a few hours.

And finally it was dry enough to handle. It was still a bit squishy inside, but the outside didn’t stick to my hands. The block on the left is how it looked at this point. The right is after I’ve wedged it together.

Before and after wedging

To mix it together I use the cut and slam method (you can see my wire in the photo at the top). I haven’t been doing it the same as this guy, but his way looks less effort. This also dries it out some more as you’re slamming it onto an absorbent surface.

A video showing how to do cut and slam wedging

I kneaded some a bit more using the ram’s head style to get it ready for throwing.

Balancing a wheel

My dear pen pal

You look good in orange

Behind the glass

It’s safe to say

Crazy things

In bytes and bits

Storytellers weaving words

Like some kind of kink

You feed me

Forgoing

erotica for neurotica

These

verbal sensations

Got me on a cliff

If you Catch me

I May need resuscitation

My mad

Bad blood sugar daddy

Won’t you give me a taste

Of that Calabrian beat

Gonna keep me waiting

Cos it’s kinda your thing

(Repeat)

We landed on Webster’s

Then we got dirty

Throwing clay for sport

Staging our lives for the screen

Promising melodies and vodka

the truth

Plays with fiction

Can we hold

I’d ask Alice but she’s not saying

you’re grinning like a cat

Holding her tongue

Are we lusting admiration

Like a school boy for a nun?

My sweet mad bad blood sugar daddy

Won’t you give me a taste of that

Calabrian beat

Don’t keep me waiting

That’s kinda my thing

[softly spoken]

Can you handle the pull

The synchronic whirl

My sweet mad bad blood sugar daddy

Got me standing on a cliff

And Alice cant speak

Just give me

a taste

of

That beat.