Pottery - Rehydrating Hard Clay the Even Easier Way - Best Method Ever!
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2024
- Check out my other pottery videos at / evolutionstoneware . Click 'subscribe' if you want to know when I post new pottery videos. I'm sorry I can't easily respond to comments left on youtube. Please direct questions to my Facebook page Evolution Stoneware Pottery or email me through my website www.EvolutionStoneware.com. This is a pottery tip about an easy way to rehydrate and soften up clay that has gotten too hard to use. I hope it helps! This was made for you by Janis Wilson Hughes, owner of Evolution Stoneware Pottery.
Please check out www.evolutionstoneware.com & www.amazon.com to get my 3 hour "Custom Clay Pottery Tools" commercial video series & my "Making Groovy Mugs" master class video on DVD and Instant Video. They’re awesome - way better than this. Go to Evolution Stoneware Pottery on Facebook for my latest updates.
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I just did this with a block of red clay and it softened up by the next day! Love this new technique! :)
Bronya Schmoyer That's *awesome*!!! I'll check mine sooner the next time I do it. sweet!
I also have red clay that I dont want to mix in the pugmill. This is a great way to do so.
This just changed my life!! I am an elementary art teacher with 370+ students and no money left in the budget! I have bags of bone dry clay. I'm going to try this and it is going to be awesome!! Thanks so much!!!
Awesome! I'm so glad you found the video. This definitely works!
I wish I had found this video a few ago. I had 2 (#25) bags of bone dry clay that I could’ve rehydrated. I know I’ll remember this if it happens again.
How did it work out?
Thumbs up for showing the two "bags with holes" clips.
Hahaha. I just realized that you dumped a cup of water into an untested bag at the end there. I hope it worked out well.
After it happened the second time I thought I'd better include it in the video because other people might have the same problem. Hahah! That was such a mess!
Life saver, rats got into my several bags of clay leaving me with concrete blocks. Thank you for this tip.
Thank You so much! I was given 1000 pounds of new but totally dry clay from a potter who is retiring to assisted living... and now I know the BEST way to rehydrate... woo hoo!
Love the dog snout at the 5 min mark!!!!!
My studio was getting rid of ancient bone dry clay, still in the boxes! I grabbed some, with plans to re-hydrate. Yippee! What a cool way to get 200 lbs of free clay!
Thanks for this video. It's really helpful. Also, the flash backs to the bags with holes was so funny!
Aloha all! Best way I've found to check for holes in plastic bags (I use this for all sorts of bags... ziplock, produce bags, trash bags) Use air instead of water to test. Open up the bag and allow air in, gather up the top so it's like a balloon, and squeeze. Deflating bag = leak. Fast and easy and no mess.
Thank you for this!
RUclips is so awesome...
Finding experts like you is the best!!!
Really good demonstration--I liked how you explained and showed your process and the the result--Bravo, Excellent! Thank you!
i spent a long time asking google about rehydrating clay using bags because i saw this video years ago, and now finally have some dry clay to test it out on! thanks!
Very clever tip thanks!
I am so doing this right now! Thank you.
Exactly the information I needed to salvage clay I bought quite some time ago. Hoping this will also work for air drying clay. Thank you 😊
Great idea and demonstration! 😊
Love the editing
One big block 6”x3”x3” from goodwill, who knows the history.
Five hours in and we’re so on our way🤗
Turned a bummer moment with the kiddo, realizing it was rock solid, into a whole new project!❤
I'm so glad I found this! I just discovered a block of clay I'd bought several years ago. It was just soft enough to push a fingernail into it. Can't wait ti try ... let you know how it worked.
Just what I needed to know!!! Im going to do that to a bag of clay tonight! Thanks!!
I like your hat, and your methodology!
Woman you are a genius! Thanks for sharing.
Excellent Idea! I've found that if you cut the 25 lb block into slabs first and let them get bone dry, it gives more surface area for the water to be absorbed into. Makes it a little quicker but it's still a great idea. Thanks! I never thought about using the water pressure to squeeze out the air. So much for my engineering background. :(
I never thought of it either until Florence told me about it, and I'm an engineer too!
I have partially dried-out clay, and I plan to try this, beginning tomorrow. So glad that I found your video with the complete demonstration. Many, many thanks. Also, thanks for the flash-back clips = funny.
I'm happy to help!
Very useful! I wish i found this sooner!
Thank youuuu ! this Works ! Greetings from Peru !
Thank you so much!
Nice work ✔️
this is brilliant and SO helpful. I have a bag of black clay that dried out and was so baffled how to soften it! gonna do right now!
kastelina I was happy when Florence told me about this technique that I had to share it. It's by far the easiest way! No need to drill holes or anything. Just add a cup of water & drop the bag in a bucket for a few days. I have a rock hard 25lb block of clay rehydrating right now actually.
Janis, This video was very informative. I recently had about a dozen blocks of clay given to me by a potter who had to quit the business. She hadn't done anything since the mid 90's. She also gave me her kiln. Every one of the blocks of clay were hard as rock. This is going to make the process of reclaiming it so much simpler....Thank you so much.
This is by far the easiest method I have ever used including some of the other recommendations people have posted and the one I showed in my first rehydrating clay video. It doesn't get much easier than pouring in a cup of water and dropping it in a bucket for a week or two, right?
EvolutionStoneware does the clay need to be bone dry or can you do this with super stuff clay too? Thanks for making this video!!!
Thank you!
Thank you SO much for sharing this method!! I have some very hard clay and was about to return it.
Debbie, I'm glad this helped! I hope yours quickly softens up to a lovely working consistency.
Great job 👏
Thanks Mona! 😊
Excellent video. Love the humour.
Thank you Fusion Music! I figure we can all use more laughter in our lives. I honestly had a comedy of errors in trying to film this. :)
Thank you👏🏼 Great video, without my pugmill, this great advice 👍🏼
OMG this is awesome!!!!!! I live in the desert and even in a short time clay goes hard.
It works perfectly for me, and this requires almost no labor compared to other methods. No poking, prodding, or cutting - just pour in some water & drop it in a bucket. :)
Super method thank you very much!!!
You're welcome. I hope it helps! :)
Thank you so much for this video. I will try this with some air dry clay I have here that dried on me before I could use it
Love the outtakes haha
Nice video my friend. That was an excellent tip for rehydrate the old clay. Great Job. Thumbs up :) Sifoutv Pottery
Thanks. Awesome
Going to try this out! I took a ceramics class 4 years ago, kept my clay but never did anything with it. It’s definitely beyond bone dry now, but they are in much smaller blocks than the one in your video so I’m hoping it will take the water just as nicely. I will update with my results!
Tarynn Tvo did this work out for you?
Thanks!
Thanks for this! I already discarded one dried up block of clay but will not do that again!
I'm so happy that you found this. When my friend Florence told me about it I thought every potter needs this info!
Great tip, great video. Just subscribed to your channel.
Thanks Kathi! :) Glad to have you on board.
Someone gave us 300 pounds of bone dry bags of clay a few years ago and we couldn't get it rehydrated, so we threw it away. Never again, thanks to your video/example. Thank you for the time and effort you put in to help us.
Janice I'm happy to help. :) I wish I had known about this technique years ago, too!
Janice Another way to reclaim bone dry clay is to break the clay up into small chunks. Please wear a quality dust mask for this process! (Repeated exposure to dust that contains silica can cause respiratory problems, namely Silicosis of the lungs) No bigger than about the size of a large marble, about the diameter of a quarter. It's work, especially if your dry clay is a 25 pound block. The smaller the better but it doesn't have to be perfect. Next, put it all in a tub or bucket large enough to add water to it and fill it up to just cover all the dry clay. Tip: make sure ALL of the clay is BONE dry. This is very important! This process is called "slaking". Leave it covered for 24-48 hours. I use a jiffy mixer in a strong hand held drill to mix the slaked clay. This will make a nice slurry. There are a number of different ways to bring the rehydrated clay down to a good working consistency. I'll just share what I do. I scoop the thick slurry out and place it on a 3" slab of pottery plaster and make it no more then about 2 1/2" thick. I cover it with 3 sheets of newspaper. The plaster will and the newspaper will draw out the excess water. (If you have another slab of plaster, you could place one on top. Clay sandwich!) Check it periodically. Replace the newspaper with dry sheets. When it is "dry" enough and not sticky, wedge it and use it! I do this with all my dry trimmings and what ever other clay that I have that has dried out. Of course, this whole process can be done much easier with a very expensive pug mill. I don't have one....yet. Google: how to reclaim dry clay. You will find ample info on this process. Happy potting! 😀
TheRakuman Yes, I have a pug mill which is a huge blessing. I find it much easier and safer to use this bucket method, but you can absolutely reclaim clay in the way you described. There are so many approaches!
Thank you for this! Just found a hard block & almost trashed it!
p.s. your dog in the video was delightful!
i like the dog, seems curious ~~
you have a student already there watching you, your dog lol. he want to learn about ceramic. thats your loyalty friend.
Yes, my dog has to approve all my studio activities to make sure I'm doing them right - at least that's what she thinks! :) I love my dogs very much.
oh thats so nice.
I wonder if this happens regularly if it would be worth weighing the clay when you get it so you know how much water to add when it's dried out.
That's a really good idea! I like it.
Thanks for sharing this! My hard clay has some mold growing on it because it was stored in a basement over a couple of humid summers. But it still dried too hard to work with! Do I need to trim off the mold first before doing this rehydrating method? Thanks!
wao, i love the way how can hydrated the clay, very good.
Thank you Elissette!
you welcome
sorry my english is so bad.
lol thanks for having such a great sense of humor HAHAH
I love this. I laughed. I have word salad to. Can not stand the bags holes either. XD
It works....
I have some mummy-dry (beyond bone) clay that's been rock hard for well over a decade. I was dreading having to do the break-and-slake, but am dying to work with them. Now I have an approach. We'll see how this does work with absolutely dry-to-the-core bagged clay.
+Eric Wolff how did it go?
I'm wondering how it went too Eric. I'd think that John Gould's suggestion of making holes in the block would speed it up, but I like the "submerged bag" trick.
Eric Wolff mummy dry...bone dry clay, will slake if you do this. If you notice, she is rehydrating too hard but moist clay. About a cup of water will do the trick awesome!
Rakuman this works with bone dry clay. Only use 1 cup of water to 25lbs. The blcok of clay wicks the water in, and the pressure of the water in the bucket on all sides of the clay forces it into the block quickly.
Hello,
Thank you for making this video.
I have a couple of questions for you.
I was working on a 12” x 10” x 2.75” block. Part way through the relief, I had a family emergency in another state. I tightly wrapped the block in a plastic bag with a moist towel. I ended up staying away for almost a year. The block, needless to say, is rock hard solid. Do you have any ideas re rehydrating it?
My next question, what kind of plastic bag did you use?
Thanks.
I decided to give this a try today. However not remembering the amount of water since I first saw this post and not double checking today I added 2 cups instead of one. I guess it'll be a little extra soft.it wasn't bone dry but definitely couldn't push my finger into the clay so maybe it'll be ok?
Nice hat.
If you cut about a 1" slab from this, put it through a slab roller at 1/4" would you still need to wedge it? I make 1/4" flat mosaic tiles, I don't create pottery pieces. TIA
Thank, this was really helpful! If anyone has advice for discovering what kind of clay I have if I'm not sure (and must know before I can get any work fired), please let me know! By smell, touch, color, anything. I got a nice, big block from someone for free, but I have no idea what cone to fire it at.
I think your best bet would be to put a small chunk of it inside a small bowl made from cone 6 or cone 10 clay & send it through a corresponding firing. If it melts down in the bowl you'll know it's low fire clay. Hopefully that made sense. Low fire clay will liquify & run even at cone 6. Don't ask me how I know.... 🙃
A quick question: is it 1 cup of water per 25# of dry clay?
Absolutely love your video & many thanks to your friend,
Thanks, Louise
Thanks Louise! Yes 1 cup (8 oz) water to 25 pounds dry clay. you can always add a splash more water after a few days if needed, but that's what usually works.
It looks like you're adding run-off/reclaimed throwing water, not tap water. That would add some smaller clay particles to the block of clay, increasing the plasticity. Or can you just add tap water?
It's tap water. Go ahead and use tap water.
Thank you for a FANTASTIC HACK...I have a 12.5 kilo block of clay that is hard due to holes in the bags, I always double bag clay but a couple of bamboo canes punctured the bags! I want to try your method but all my spare bags have holes! I'm disabled and been house bound for over 8 years so I get all my gear from web sites. This is the first time for me to buy the bags, the bags that I normally use are the ones that the clay come's in and they have been suffice! Can anyone recommend any bags that I can order please?
Thank you once again for a perfect answer to really hard clay, this will save myself and so many others so much money and time in the future... I can't thank you enough.👍😃👍
Got some heavy duty bags..... now where's that water lol
Is this good for red terra cotta clay?
I have a full block (brick) thats been im the closet for years
Yes, should be fine. 👍
@@EvolutionStoneware Aww... you answered! Its a 6 year old video!
Thanks a bunch for the response, and the info!
OMG! Laughing so hard! You are too cute!
what about clay that looks like it has mold forming? white spots? should I toss it.?
Mold generally won't hurt clay & will fire out without a trace. But you'll have to evaluate whether or not it's okay for your health to be exposed to the mold.
I am an HS teacher and I have the same problem with old clay. I cannot quite tell if you are using a cup of water as 8 oz or is it more than 8 ounces. I use metric and 8 0z is 236.5 ml which doesn't look like your measurement. Are you using more than 8 ounces for 25 lbs of clay?
Hello! 8 oz to 25 pounds of dry clay is a good ratio. I used this method again 2 days ago with about 10 pounds of clay, and it was soft in a little over 1 day! I find it's tempting to use more water, but it's better to start around 8 oz per 25 pounds because it's a lot of work to deal with overly mushy clay if you use too much water. I hope this helps! I still use this method, and it works wonderfully! Be sure to check your bag for holes!
Well I'm here because I had really dry clay and I didn't know how to recovered so I taught if I put in inside of a bucket with water would work .... it did but not the way I thought it would...the clay kind dissolved..I already took the excess of water out but now the clay looks like a paste, does anybody know how I correct the situation so I can use the clay again ? (Sorry for my English it's now my first language)
Let it air dry and wedge it like crazy once it is firm enough. Porcelain can be problematic when reconstituted, but stoneware clay should be okay.
What causes the clay to get hard like that? I just bought some new clay bit it was kind of hard right out of the package....
It dries out over time or there might be a hole in the bag. Basically the dryer it is, the harder it is.
I have several 25# bags of clay. Not Stone dry but hard enough to not be able to cut or work with. Will this method (or any method) still work?
I'm gonna try this with bone dry pieces and slabs that broke and are just taking up space.
Yes it will work with clay that still has some moisture. You can reduce the amount of water you add to it a bit, & it'll probably be ready faster than bone dry clay. This is super easy. It'll work for your clay. 🙂
@@EvolutionStoneware Thanks. I'll try this after lunch. 😘 Wil respond how this works.
Hi, is it possible that we make clay by using simple way at home ?
It is possible to dig clay out of the ground. It is often found along river banks. You may be able to research your area. If you want to fire clay in a kiln to harden it you're beat to use commercially prepared clay to start with.
Hi, could you help with rehydrating paper clay? Thanks
I would do the same thing. I don't use paper clay, but I think this method would work.
Cool! I'll try that out today. Has anyone tried this out with Porcellaine? I still have 10 kg from Limoges and 10 kg of Audrey Blackman Porc. 1101. Any recommendations? :-) Hello from Germany
Hello! It should be okay for porcelain. I recommend checking the clay every day or every other day. It may not take more than 3 days to be workable, and it's probably best not to let it get too soggy.
if you put the bag of clay in the bucket first, the hole would not make a mess, but it might make the clay too wet. looking at the top of the bag being pushed by the water, it would work without tying, even.
If the bag has a hole, believe me the bag manages to fill up with excess water around the clay once in the bucket. Then your clay turns to total mush in a hurry.. It has happened to me more than once. You also must at least clip the top of the bag to the side of the bucket above water level. If it goes below water level it will take on water inside. I also know this from experience LOL! The water finds every way in.
i want to learn to make ceramic because i love to make jewelry, and i would like to make my own beads, can you make a video about how to make ceramic beads? please!!!!! just let me know if one of this day you decide to make a video, i didn't have a kiln yet, because i want to learn about ceramic yet before i spent in a kiln oven, thanks so much
I have a video called Pottery: Throwing Pendants Off the Hump here ruclips.net/video/TOczWf8p-48/видео.html that you might enjoy. This shows making beads or pendants on the pottery wheel. Hope it helps!
thanks
Wow! Who knew?
How can i get that kiln which is your back
My kilns all happen to be Skutt brand. The larger ones are model 1027, & the smaller one is 181 (this model is no longer made & has been replaced with a different model number).
I have a much quicker way. I open bag, drill or on softer clay. I poke deep holes and pour water in the holes and recover in plastic. Two days ready. Been doing this for 8 yrs.
Thanks
i'm here for the doggo
Will this work with Versa Clay?
Judi Calhoun it should work with versa clay. I've only used this method with mid to high fire clays, but I think it will work for just fine for versa clay.
Thank you!
I am trying this process. I purchased Zip-lock 2.5 gallon bags and still I tied it up with a wire.
Sounds like a good approach! I'm kind of embarrassed how often I've used leaky bags. 😅 I actually used a bag with a hole in it again last month without realizing it.
If not "rock hard", stabbing vertical holes in the block with a brush handle that can fill with the water that you are pouring into the bag will take only seconds longer to do and increase surface area for absorption significantly. Water can disperse from core out and not just from the wall in. You should be able to wedge and use much sooner.
This is what I've been doing and teaching my students. Works great when it's a new bag and hard to throw. Especially for beginners.
Ronald Barton you are totally right... the best way to do it :D
+Ronald Barton What if you use a drill to make holes in the rock hard block? That should work too right
if its rock hard you can drill it right? I guess you'd need an extended bit tho.
Stephen b there is no need to drill. You are just doing extra work if you do. Add 1 cup of water, & drop the bag in a bucket of water for a week. Done. :)
1cup to 25 #?
Yep! Hard to believe, but trust me that's all you'll need.
Thanks!