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Making clay is not that hard. Not too long ago it was part of most potters jobs to dig and process all the clay they used. Yet today it is almost a lost art. In this video I show you 3 methods for making clay at home, simply and easily.
Some clay processing equipment
Screen - https://amzn.to/3J5GdZy
Another screen - https://amzn.to/3Kbt3LS
Paint strainer bags - https://amzn.to/3NOONzk
Metate for grinding clay - https://amzn.to/3DGoczQ
Hand cranked mill for grinding clay - https://amzn.to/3DIjhP0
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0:00 What Is Clay?
2:02 Selecting the Right Dirt To Make Clay With
4:58 The 3 Methods For Making Dirt Into Clay
9:03 Tempering Clay So It Won't Crack
#wildclay
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No you cannot make clay just from dirt. You need the right minerals, which may already be present in dirt but thats no guarantee.
What kind of minerals are needed? Can you find earth that feels like clay but won’t fire nicely? Or do the required minerals also give those plastic properties you can see in earth?
Some are kaolinite, montmorillonite, and illite and they do indeed help with the plasticity. I am not sure if you can create clay from pure materials without specialized machines.
I am not an expert in this field but its one of the rare things that I remember from school, mostly because it was very relevant when helping my dad build a chicken coop.
Basically you need clay soil, which as far as i am aware is just a natural occurring soil layer containing those nutrients. Depending on the local area that soil may already feel like clay and might be usuable as is. But its probably better to refine this into proper clay at home.
If you want to make your own clay I recommend simply asking around where to find clay soil. Almost every terrain anywhere exists out of multiple layers of different soil and chance is high that some people can tell you exactly what your local composition is. The same nutrients that make clay are also very good to grow food, people have been studying these compositions for ages to decide where to start farming and building.
For me all that mattered was if dig a hole to put a pillar for the coop, i first had to dig trough normal dirt. Then had to struggle my way trough the “high quality clay soil which the local farm area is famous for”. To get to the much easier to penetrate sandlayer (still mostly dirt but the opposite of plasticity)
Nutrients?
Good catch, il leave it in for fun. Its almost the same thing contextually.
If you’re a golem, sure
I think you’re overthinking this. The presence of water is required to make clay minerals, and water has covered just about the entire surface of the planet. I’m also pretty sure the people making clay over 10,000 years ago didn’t do a fine analysis of the raw dirt they refined their clay from. This video also showed 3 ways to refine clay, depending on the clay content. And given that the profile of soil generally includes some amount of clay (loam consists of less than 40%, deserts are often over 90% sand and still have clay) pretty much any natural soil that grows plants probably has some amount of clay.
So yes, you need specific minerals to make clay, they just happen to be almost everywhere plants, and thus people, are found. And no, this won’t give you pure clay minerals, but if the clay isn’t white, that’s already the case.
Your probably correct what the water is concerned, as I mentioned i am not a proper expert. But think in prehistoric times it was more a matter of “that spot near the river has some cool sticky dirt you can make things with” The clay soil below my parents chicken coop seemed pretty much usable as it came from the ground.
I think clay rich soil is common enough to not need to bother with low clay soil and sand but that could be a skewed perspective from my local area. If there really is no other way its useful to know that technically any dirt will contain something to extract.
Oh, absolutely. I imagine there are places with very little clay content, requiring the third technique the video showed to be used in ancient times, not unlike the extreme measures the Japanese had to use to to refine iron compared to many other places.
So you can make clay from dirt.