A counter question to the guy who posted a similar question few hours ago, cause most of the answers weren't helpful for someone like me, who doesn't have much money😅.

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[–] 1 point 1 day ago (1 child)

Thanks! That could be worth trying and experiment with. Along with also trying to further refine the clay.

Ideally could do with making an area of the garden for refining clay really. Perhaps I should dig for some more at some point and refine in larger quantities.

Years ago had friends talking about wanting to make some pottery, I suggested let's do it I'll go get some clay. Now I have the crumbly clay and they don't have any interest in touching it. They don't even know its crumbly because they don't want to bother trying when the opportunity is presented.

One idea I had was pressing the clay into tiles and carving into them, lacking plasticity shouldn't be such a problem if it is being pushed into a form.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    One more thing, young mystic.

    After you make your clay as pure as can be, you should add some silt and sand back in. In a controlled way. It minimizes cracking, because silt and sand don't expand as much as clay (or at all) when hydrated. From my experience, a tablespoon of dry silt should be enough grog for a single bowl. You can also use other kinds of grog, depending on what qualities you want the fired ceramics to have. If you want porous, you add used coffee ground (it pyrolizes during firing and leaves pores). You can also add various metals to change color and qualities of the ceramic.

    And the process I described does work. Tried it myself. Seen it done by others. It does make the clay more workable. If you fire it right, it makes a perfectly functional ceramic (something that usually wouldn't be possible without this process).

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