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Meowyjsmokes

Reclaiming Clay question (self.pottery)

submitted 1 year ago by WeeSheep to c/pottery

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I have a lot of dry clay I have saved to reuse. Most of it is in smaller pieces, I'm working my way to making it into powder. I'm thinking of getting a rock tumbler to make small batches of powder since most of the pieces are pretty small anyway.

Currently, i put the powder and sometimes granules into a bucket and pour white vinegar and very hot water over it, sometimes mixing immediately sometimes waiting for it to cool. I always let it rehydrate for at least a few days before drying on a plaster board.

Currently I mix the clay by folding and flattening, as this is easier than wedging for me. I'll wedge smaller pieces, but for these larger ones I'll pop the air bubbles and smooth it out. So far it's been ok but I'll sometimes have a bubble I missed until I am nearly done shaping on the wheel.

Does anyone have suggestions for how to decrease the air bubbles trapped from rehydrating? Would a vibrating paint mixer work?

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[–] glimse 1 points 1 year ago

How coincidental to see a pottery post the day after I spent a night binging videos about clay!

I haven't done pottery since middle school but this guy has a ton of videos about making/reusing clay. Sorry for commenting without an actual answer but maybe you can find some tips on that channel? From what I saw he wasn't too concerned with breaking it up super fine. In one video he just smashes up the dried clay in his driveway. I didn't see anything about air bubbles aside from kneading it really hard to get rid of them